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SAVONAROLA, I'ORTRAYED BY FRA BARrOLOMMEO. 



Jerome Savonarola 



A SKETCH 



REV. J. L. O'NEIL, O.P. 



BOSTON 
MARLIER, CALLANAN & CO. 

1898 



1^ G^ A^A 

NOS INFRASCRIPTI Revisores Ord. Praed.pro scriptis excu- 
dendis Jidem facimus quod attente perlectum opnsculum ctijus 
titulus "Jerome Savonarola," a Rev. Fr. J. L. O' Neil, 0. P., 
coinpilatum, typis inandari posse censemus. 

In quorum Jidem his propi'ia manu subscrlpsimus. 
Datum in Collegia nostro Sti. Joseph Ohiensi, apud Somerset, 
die 16^ Junii, 1898. 

FR. JOSEPHUS KENNEDY, O.P., Stud. Regens. 
FR. AUGUSTINUS WALDRON, O.P., S.T.L. 

IMPRIMATUR. 

FR. LAURENT! US FR A NCI SC US KEARNEY, 

O.P., S.T.B., Prior Provincialis. 

Bostonise, JulH 25, 1S98. 
Imprimatur in Bmcesi Bostonlensi: 

GULIELMUS BYRNE, V.G. 

Ordinarius Agens. 



2r 



•^OPYKIGHT, 1898, 

By Rev. J. L. O'Neil, O.P. 




TWOCOritiRcCtlVED. 






TO 

Soi^n ^. Jlooncu, 3L3L.©. 

WHOSE SOLID LKARNING AND BUOAD CULTURE A LOYAL FAITH 
AND DEVOTED ZEAL HAVE OFTEN AND GENER- 
OUSLY PLACED AT THE SERVICE OF 
,TRUTH AND HISTORY, 
WHOSE GRACEFUL PEN HAS BEEN FREQUENTLY AND VIGOR- 
OUSLY WIELDED IN DEFENCE OF THE 
church's INTERESTS, 

Cfjis Uoliime is ©etiirateti 

AS A MARK OF AFFECTION AND ESTEEM FOR A DEAR FRIEND, 

AN EMINENT CATHOLIC SCHOLAR, AND AN 

ACCOMPLISHED GENTLEMAN. 



PEEFACE. 



This little volume is issued in commemoration 
of the fourth centenary of the death of Jerome 
Savonarola, who was executed on May 23, 1498. 
I have not approached tlie subject with any notion 
of presenting the famous preacher in a new light, 
nor have I written for scholars to whom the copi- 
ous literature on Savonarola is available, but for 
those to whom many of these works may not be 
accessible. In the first part of this sketch the 
public career of Savonarola is presented after the 
manner of a chronicle ; in the second part I have 
endeavored to give a picture of the man, illus- 
trated by his own writings, which are considered 
in an appendix. 

For the convenience of those of my readers who 
may desire to pursue the subject in a more compre- 
hensive way, I add a second appendix, containing 
a list of books that will be found of service. I 
have drawn from some of these works, and have con- 
sulted, at first liand, all the contemporary sources, 
but I do not consider it necessary to encumber the 
pages of this volume with detailed references. A 
general credit and acknowledgment must suffice, 
particularly as my obligations to a majority of tlie 
authors named is slight, while I am much indebted 

V 



VI PBEFACE 

to other sources of value which are not specially 
mentioned. 

Passion, in most loyal devotion and in most 
malignant enmity, centred around the friar during 
life. Time has not silenced the voice of hate or of 
love. If the Italian laureate, Carducci, in his blas- 
phemous "Hymn to Satan," hails Savonarola as 
one through whom Lucifer wrought havoc among 
mitres and crowns, saints have regarded him as 
a martyr and saint.^ In applying the terms "mar- 
tyr" and "saintly" to Savonarola, I am mindful 
of the decree of Urban the Eighth, to which I pro- 
fess entire submission. 

The saying attributed to the great Pope Bene- 
dict the Fourteenth, who venerated the friar, — " If 
God gives me the grace to win Heaven, as soon 
as I shall have consoled myself with the Beatific 
Vision, my curiosity will lead me to look for Sa- 
vonarola," — vividly expresses a thought awakened 
in many minds during the last four hundred years. 
The alleged declaration of Pius the Seventh, that 
in Heaven we shall know why the Jesuits were 
suppressed, and the meaning of Savonarola's death, 
is probably the last word of criticism for all prac- 
tical purposes. 

Feast of St. Catherine of Siena, 

April 30, 18«>8. 

1 Years have probably conferred greater discretion on Carducci. 
Recently he made a public declaration that the celebration of Sa- 
vonarola's fourth centenarj'^ was not appropriate for him or his 
kind ; that only devout and intelligent Catholics should partici- 
pate in it. 



CONTENTS. 



FIRST PART. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Ancestry and Early Days of Jerome 

Savonarola 1 

II. The Cloister, — Ideal of the Religious 

Life (1475-1481) 7 

III. Arrival in Florence (1482) 10 

IV. Beginning of Savonarola's Career as a 

Preacher and Missionary (1482-1489) . 15 
V. Lenten Discourses. — Prior of St. Mark's. 
— Relations with Lorenzo de' Medici 

(1490-1492) 19 

YI. The Death-bed of Lorenzo de' Medici . 27 
VII. The Friar's Visions, Journeys, Labors. 

— Reform of the Convents (1492-1494) 30 
VIII. Patriotism of the Friar During the 

French Invasion 35 

IX. The Friar's Services to the Florentine 

Republic (1494-1495) 42 

X. The Friar saves Florence from the 

French King 47 

XI. Reformation of the People in Spite of 

Opposition 51 

XII. Relations with the Pope (1495) ... 54 

XIII. Reformation of the Children of Flor- 

ence (1495-1490) 64 

XIV. A New Course of Sermons awakens Pa- 

pal Displeasure 86 

XV. Missionary and Literary Labors Dur- 
ing 1496. — Renewed Contention with 
the Pope 72 

vii 



via 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XVI. Plots of the Friar's Enemies. — The 

Burning of the "Vanities" (1497) . 76 
XVII. Alexander VI. excommunicates Savo- 
narola 81 

XVIII. A Calumny answered. — Disobedience 
OF THE Friar. — The Pope threatens 

AN Interdict 86 

XIX. The "Trial by Fire" (1498) 94 

XX. The Attack on St. Mark's. — Arrest of 

THE Friar 100 

XXI. Trial and Torture 104 

XXII. In Solitary Confinement 110 

XXIII. Execution of Savonarola 114 

SECOND PART. 

I. Estimates of Catholic and Non-Catho- 
lic Writers 121 

II. The Tijue Character of the Friar . . 149 

III. His Influence on Christian Education, 

Literature, and Art 159 

IV. Savonarola and Luther 168 

V. The Contest with the Pope 178 

VI. Savonarola venerated by Saintly Men 

AND AVOMEN 182 

VII. Attitude of the Holy See toward Sa- 
vonarola 185 



IL 



III. 



APPENDICES. 

Savonarola's Doctrines, Opinions, and 
Sentiments illustrated from His Pub- 
lished Works 188 

Savonarola and Christian Art in Flor- 
p:nce (F. Bernardin Merlin, O. P.) . 210 

A Bibliography 222 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



FIRST PART. 
I. 

ANCESTRY AXD EARLY DAYS OF SAVONAROLA. 

On the 21st of September, in the year 1452, was 
born the most illustrious citizen of the ancient 
Italian city of Ferrara, Jerome Savonarola.^ 

The family of Savonarola was of Paduan extrac- 
tion. Jerome's grandfather, Michael, was a cele- 
brated physician in Padua, where for two hundred 
years his ancestors had won distinction and esteem. 
The fame of Doctor Savonarola induced Nicholas 
the Third, Lord of Ferrara, to urge his coming to 
that city. He accepted the invitation, and as phy- 
sician to the prince took up his residence at the 
court. 

Of his son Nicholas, the father of Jerome, noth- 
ing notable is recorded. A shiftless man, a physi- 

1 Ferrara, now a poor town of scarcely thirty thousand people, 
was then a city of one hundred thousand inliahitaiits, and as the 
capital of the House of Este, the scene of much splendor, a home 
of Italian culture and pagan learning, the stately host of visiting 
princes, emperors, and popes, to whom royal welcome was mag- 
nificently extended. 

1 



2 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

cian without ambition, but an acceptable follower 
of the court, he failed to share the renown attach- 
ing to the name of Michael, who was justly distin- 
guished for his medical writings as well as for his 
skill in practice. 

Jerome was one of seven children. Of his ear- 
liest years we have few particulars. Neither pla}^- 
ful nor pretty, he was a grave child, studious, 
devoted to his mother. These are the character- 
istics that most deeply impressed themselves on 
observers and biographers, and they sum up the 
exterior child life of this remarkable man.^ 

1 The period which witnessed the birth and childhood of Sa- 
vonarola marks the close of the Middle Ages, ushers in the Renais- 
sance, and is at once the dawn of a new spiritual life for the 
Church, and a harbinger of the dread Reformation. 

He was a nursing infant when Constantinople fell, and the last 
of the Greek emperors, Constantino Paleologus, gave way to the 
conquering Turk, Mahomet the Second ; when Scanderbeg was 
fighting, and St. John Capistran, the famous Franciscan, was 
preaching for the cause of Christian Europe. The fifteenth cen- 
tury was not only an era of religious and political activity, but of 
general restlessness, of social turbulence, of mercantile enterprise, 
of maritime expeditions, of impulsive ambitions. 

The invention of the art of printing from movable types; the 
improvement in methods of manufacturing paper, with the con- 
sequent cheapening and multiplying of books ; the introduction to 
Western Europe, through a multitude of scholarly Grecian refu- 
gees, of the riches of Oriental culture, not only in their native 
Greek, but in the store of Arabic, Chaldaic, and Syriac literature, 
henceforth to form a part of the intellectual life of the West ; and 
of a fuller classical learning, the renewal of studies which had 
never perished, especially in monastic schools, — were among the 
causes that, in the seething womb of this peculiar epoch, struggled 
for the birth of a new life. 

During the period when these various forces were in a condi- 



JEBOME SAVONAROLA. 3 

As he entered upon his growing boyhood, the 
seriousness of the child deepened. He soon recog- 
nized the vanity and pomp of a society which was 
largely pagan in its refinement. He conceived 
such an abhorrence for it that, having once been 
brought to the duke's palace, he resolutely declared 
that he would never again visit the place. Study 
and prayer filled his days, while meditation made 
more firm his increasing conviction that the times 
were evil. 

His parents intended him for the medical pro- 
fession, but Divine Providence had otherwise 
ordained. In the learning of his day Savonarola 
made rapid progress ; for as Burlamacchi, after- 
Avards his religious brother and disciple, tells us, 
he worked night and day. The philosophy of Ar- 
istotle and of Plato he diligently read, following 
these by an ardent and enthusiastic study of the 
Angelic Doctor. 

While he thus enriched his mind, devotion and 

tion of fermentation, the minds of many were anxious and har- 
assed, and spiritual men foresaw and proclaimed that some great, 
because necessary, change must come in the affairs of Church 
and state. 

As the century advanced in its second half, the immortal dis- 
coverer Christopher Columbus, whose voyages were to open a 
new world for the Church and civilization, was dreaming his 
divine dreams, and looking out over the unknown seas with eyes 
of yearning and with a heart eager for exploration, and inspired 
by zeal for the salvation of souls. These two famous Italians did 
not meet in this world ; but in starry regions of peace and bliss, 
we trust that their much-tried spirits have found rest and recom- 
pense with God. 



4 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

piety shone in his manner and conduct, the fruit 
of the growing charity with which his tender heart 
glowed. Fidelity to his books prepared him for 
that wider and deeper research which came later, 
in reading the lessons of the human heart. Full 
of sympathy as he witnessed squalor, suffering, 
and ignorance side by side with luxury, indul- 
gence, and pagan culture, his soul burned with 
righteous indignation against the irreligious and 
unchristian spirit which was dominant, and witli 
tender pity for God's neglected poor. 

As the gulf, already broad, grew wider and 
wider, " the rich becoming richer and the poor 
poorer," his spirit cried out in the crude but im- 
passioned verses which he entitled " On the Ruin 
of the World." To him the whole world seemed 
awry, virtue and piet}^ having disappeared, sin 
walking abroad without shame, bloodshed and 
rapine triumphant, the widow and the orphan 
despoiled, Christ scorned, and Heaven defied. Sa- 
vonarola was then only in his twentieth year. We 
may easily credit Father Marchese when he tells 
us that at this time the youth found pleasure in 
the woods, in lonely places, walking in the fields 
or by the river's bank, singing plaintively or weep- 
ino-, thus a'ivinof vent to the emotions which surged 
in his breast. 

For an account of an interesting incident of this 
period of his life we are indebted to Father Bene- 
dict, one of his disciples at St. Mark's, who learned 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 5 

from the master many details of his youth. Living 
near the Savonarohi homestead in Ferrara was a 
Florentine exile of the noble house of the Strozzi, 
whose daughter attracted the attention of the 
gloomy young poet. A sudden attachment sprang 
from this, doubtless a passing emotion of fancy, 
under the influence of which Savonarola declared 
to the lady his devotion. We may judge the just 
indignation with which he met her haughty rejec- 
tion, her cutting announcement that no Strozzi 
could stoop to an alliance with a Savonarola. 

This shattering of his hopes, this disappearance, 
as he then thought, of all light and sunshine, was 
the happy occasion of his turning more completely 
to God. The piety which he had always culti- 
vated now urged him to an absolute abandonment 
of the world. He did not act hastily ; but consid- 
ered the matter long, seeking guidance through 
prayer. 

When he was about twenty-two years old, as he 
mentions in one of his discourses, and as Pico della 
Mirandola, Burlamacchi, and Father Benedict also 
record, he heard a sermon delivered by an Augustin- 
ian friar. So deep an impression did this preacher 
make on him that his resolution was at once formed 
to leave the world and to join a religious order. 
His love and admiration for St. Thomas Aquinas 
determined his choice of the Order of Preachers. 
Nevertheless, another year passed before he effected 
his purpose. 



6 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

During this time his tender heart suffered un- 
speakable anguish, for the delay was entirely due 
to his fear of inflicting pain on his father and 
mother by announcing to them his purpose of 
retiring to a monastery. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



II. 



THE CLOISTER. — IDEAL OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
{1475-1481.) 

The struggle was ended only in 1475. On April 
24, being then in his twenty-third year, Savonarola 
stealthily left his home, and set out for Bologna 
and St. Dominic's, where the sacred relics of the 
Patriarch lie enshrined in the noble and exquisite 
tomb wrought by Niccolo Pisano, the cradle of 
modern Christian art.^ 

Savonarola's earliest ideal was the religious life 
in its simplest form, the work and lowliness of 
a lay-brother seeming to him the more attractive. 
This erroneous notion was dissipated by the Fathers 
of St. Dominic's, who pointed out to the student 

1 For the consolation of his father and mother he wrote a letter 
and a brief tract on contempt of the world. These they found after 
his departure. The letter is deeply religious. Declaring the feel- 
ings of love and reverence for his parents which were deep in his 
heart, he gently reminds them that he could not have trusted 
himself to bid them adieu. In a subsequent letter he tells them 
that he is about to become a soldier of Jesus Christ, an honor 
which they will assuredly prize above the fleeting honors of this 
world's wars and heroes. In his tract he emphasized these senti- 
ments, expressing at the same time, in vigorous language, his 
horror of the sinful world which he is about to abandon. He 
begins, even in this youthful production, to announce the coming 
wrath of God in punishment of Italy's sins. 



8 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

that the career to which he was called was that of 
the priestliood. 

In the retreat at Bologna, Savonarola spent seven 
happy years. Pi-ayer, fasting, mortifications of the 
most rigorous kind, filled his days ; at the same time 
his modesty and obedience proved how truly he had 
separated himself from the outer world. During 
this period he lectured to the novices, composed 
a Compendium of Philosophy, and wrote com- 
mentaries on Plato, his previous philosophical and 
theological studies having laid a most solid foun- 
dation for the vast learning which he subsequently 
acquired. 

Early in his religious life his meditations, which 
before his coming to Bologna had found expression 
in the canticle or poem, already mentioned, on the 
ruin of the world, bore further fruit in a second 
metrical composition, which he styled " The Ruin 
of the Church." Brooding over the unhappy con- 
dition of his beloved Italy (for Savonarola was no 
mere provincial), witnessing a period whose annals 
deal frequently with treachery, cruelty, bloodshed 
in war, in riot, and in assassination, his gloomy fore- 
bodings were further embittered as he beheld the 
relaxation in morals, the scandals in ecclesiastical 
life, the decay of faith, the numerous disorders 
which afflicted the Church. In this canticle on 
the sins prevailing among the faithful, his ardent 
soul pictures with a sombre vividness the evils that 
had already come, and the misfortunes that, as a 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 9 

necessary consequence and punishment, would fol- 
low in their train. He describes the Church in 
solitude, mourning the overthrow of her chaste edi- 
fice, spending her days in tears because of the 
havoc that had been wrought. His inflamed im- 
agination beheld the evil spirit as a horrible vam- 
pire that had spread its great wings over the 
prostrate form of the Church, from which it grad- 
ually drew the life-blood. Then, as if rapt in an 
ecstasy of indignation, the impetuous young friar 
poured out the longings of his soul " for the 
beauty of the house of the Lord," and for the 
honor of the place where His glory dwelleth : " O 
God, O Lady, give me that I may break those 
spreading wings ! that I may slay this monster ! 
that I may lift up and restore your beloved 
Church ! " 1 

His gracious Lady bade him be silent, to pray 
and weep. With swelling heart he obeyed, giving 
himself to the life of the cloister in the fullest 
devotion of his generous soul. Thus restrained 
by the Spirit of God, and yielding to the empire 
of grace, he rigorously devoted himself to the voca- 
tion with which he had been honored. 

1 "We have paraphrased the impassioned words of the young 
friar. These verses supply the key to his future career. 



10 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



III. 

ARRIVAL IN FLORENCE. (1482.) 

History is silent as to the time of Savonarola's 
first appearance in the pulpit. Even the date of 
his ordination is not given by his biographers. Cer- 
tain it is, however, that while in Bologna his su- 
periors directed him to preach. What effect these 
discourses had on his audience we know not. Ap- 
parently he did not achieve any notable success, 
for contemporary chronicles make no mention of 
his efforts. 

In 1481 he was sent to Ferrara, his native city, 
where for a time he preached, but without any spe- 
cial influence. Apart from a lack of polish that 
many of the cultured hearers of those days consid- 
ered more important than doctrine, his want of 
success may have been an illustration of the old 
proverb, that a prophet is not without honor save 
in his own country. So, at least, Savonarola 
thought. 

During this year, the closing of the University 
of Ferrara, the faculty of which included several 
members of the Dominican Order, was the occasion 
for the withdrawal of some of the brethren previ- 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 11 

ously assigned to tlie convent of that city. Savo- 
narola was sent to the Tuscan capital, destined 
afterwards to be the scene of his triumphs and his 
sorrows. He never again saw his native place. 
The contemplation of the misfortunes which threat- 
ened Ferrara and all Italy through expected war, 
stirred the soul of the anxious friar as he began 
his journey to his new home. We know not 
whether the gloom of his reflections was brightened 
by the beautiful panorama which opened up before 
him in the very heart of the garden land of Italy, 
as he gazed, for the first time, on the lovely valley 
in which fair Florence, divided by the River Arno, 
sat gloriously enthroned, and solemnly guarded by 
the lordly Apennines. Nor may we judge whether, 
as he entered the noble convent of St. Mark, a 
prophetic inspiration fell upon his soul, or coming 
events cast their shadows on the hopes that must 
have swelled his generous heart while he thought 
of this new and extensive field which awaited his 
labor and zeal. 

The name of St. Mark's is forever linked with 
the history of Florence, with the career of Savona- 
rola, and with the memory of the Medici ; for it 
was Cosimo the Elder who built and endowed the 
convent at a heavy cost, and there welcomed the 
Dominicans in the year 1443. To this great man 
the brethren were further indebted for a maofnifi- 
cent library, which was practically the first public 
library founded in Italy. The friars of St. Mark's 



12 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

were men of learning as well as of piety ; and under 
their fostering care, especially in the golden days of 
St. Antoninus and of Fra Angelico, St. Mark's be- 
came the centre of Christian culture in Florence. 

Only twenty-two years had elapsed since the 
death of the gentle archbishop when Savonarola 
entered the convent whose walls were all alive with 
the speaking figures of Angelico's lovely saints 
and angels, and with the glory of Paradise itself, 
and whose chronicles were enriched with the story 
of his brother Dominican artists. Learning and 
art and sanctity, the-refore, greeted the young friar 
from Ferrara, and bade him welcome to this home 
of religion and true Christian erudition. 

Beyond its peaceful cloister there arose the din 
and strife of politics and of contending philoso- 
phers.^ Not only were purely religious studies neg- 
lected,^ but even the pursuit of full and genuine 

1 While in other parts of Europe politics, as we now under- 
stand the term, was an unknown factor, in Italy a number of 
petty states, variously named, including one kingdom, several 
duchies, republics, and marquisates, had so fostered the spirit of 
diplomacy and statecraft, that in the fifteenth century the sci- 
ence of politics had made rapid advance in popular interest and 
study. Florence probably deserved the primacy of eminence in 
the tangled and crooked work which this study and interest devel- 
oped among the turbulent and often fiercely contentious Tuscans. 

Among the literati of this time, the amenities (?) of literary 
life were often observed by charge and countercharge of fraud, 
treachery, crime, etc., " the flowers with which the glorious path 
of scholarship was strewn." 

2 At this time, as Savonarola declared in one of his sermons, 
there was not a professor of Holy Scripture in all Florence, out- 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. IB 

profane learning was neither serious nor dignified. 
Lorenzo the Magnificent discussed Plato with his 
followers,^ and then passed to tlie composition of 
obscene carnival ballads and rhymes whose merits 
his sycophantic courtiers lauded beyond the immor- 
tal song of Dante. Such was the standard among 
the men who venerated everything ancient, who 
regarded "the discovery of a Greek or Latin 
manuscript as one of the greatest blessings of 
Heaven," who extravagantly extolled the clas- 
sics, and endeavored, through a blind imitation 
of Greek and Latin writers, to establish a neopa- 
gan literature. 

So lamentable a measure of life, among the 
higher classes, accompanied as it was by much im- 
morality, induced a corresponding degradation of 
the people. Vice, it may be said, was too often 
unchecked, unrebuked. The Carnival was not a 
mere diversion preceding Lent; it was a prolonged 
dissipation in which lewd displays and ribald songs, 

side of the monasteries, and even in them he claimed that the 
sacred study did not flourish. 

1 The Academy of Phxto, which had heen founded by Cosimo 
de' Afedici, was then under the presidency of the famous Marsi- 
lio Ficino. Its members often engaged in debate on theological 
and philosophical questions, having in view the reconciliation of 
Christianity with paganism! Of Ficino himself it is recorded 
that the Gospels were Platonized before he could relish them. 
While thus marking with a note of severity those scholars who 
were puffed up with pagan lore, we are not unmindful of those 
who, like Pico della Mirandola, that marvel of genius and learn- 
ing, had preserved their faith, and even later cultivated devotion. 



14 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

some of the latter composed by Lorenzo, were a 
large part of the programme. The contamination 
of public manners was a necessary consequence of 
these entertainments. 

Hallam, speaking of Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
whose patriotism he could not praise as disinter- 
ested, declares that he completed the subversion 
of the. Florentine republic for which his two im- 
mediate ancestors had prepared, the mockery and 
pageant of forms having alone been preserved by 
him in order to keep up the illusion of liberty. 

A student of Tacitus, Lorenzo realized that, in 
imitation of the Roman Emperor Augustus, the 
most effective way to carry out his purpose of en- 
slaving the people was first to corrupt them. Nor 
had he read the life of Pericles without learning 
the same lesson from the Athenian tyrant. 

It is not, therefore, surprising that the political 
condition was deplorable among a people whose 
republican institutions had previously and succes- 
sively resisted oft-repeated shocks, but who now 
seemed, with few exceptions, dead to all thought 
of freedom. Verily, the proud Catholic Republic 
had sunk low when Savonarola began his labors 
among the Florentines. 



JEROME SAVONABOLA. 15 



IV. 



BEGINNING OF SAVONAROLA'S CAREER AS A PREACHER 
AND MISSIONARY. {1482-1489.) 

It required but a short time for Savonarola to 
appreciate his new surroundings. Occupied with 
the instruction of the novices, he had, however, no 
opportunity of appearing in the pulpit till the 
Lent of 1482. These few months of preparation 
were providential. They enabled him to study the 
difficulties of his position, and served as a judi- 
cious check on what might have been a rash pre- 
cipitancy had he spoken in the first fervor of his 
indignation. Seeing how the Bible was held in 
slight esteem, having been superseded by Plato 
and Aristotle among many of the learned, he gave 
himself with renewed determination to the study 
of the Scriptures, inculcating at the same time a 
like devotion on the part of his novices. The Di- 
vine Word was indeed his armory. During all 
the succeeding years of his preaching he invari- 
ably made the Holy Scriptures the root and basis 
of his discourses.^ 



1 "He delighted," Father Marchese tells us, " in the Bible as 
a perennial fountain of inspiration. Like Dante, Michael Angelo, 
Milton, he drew from the sacred pages beauties which entitle 
him to rank with the immortals." Possibly Savonarola's great 



16 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

Disregarding the prevailing method of address, 
and speaking from his big, honest heart, without 
quibble or subterfuge, seeking neither to please 
cultivated ears nor to win pagan applause, he 
beofan his Lenten sermons in the church of San 
Lorenzo. His earnestness, his fire, his wealth of 
Scripture learning and comment, were all lost on 
the Florentines who came to hear him. 

Their sense of pagan art and refinement was 
shocked by the bluntness of the man who cared 
more for truth than for its forms. As Lent drew 
to its close his audience had dwindled to twenty- 
five, women and children included. Assuredly a 
discouraging beginning for the ardent champion 
of faith and virtue in this demoralized centre of 
infidelity and immorality ! Nevertheless, he ac- 
cepted the lesson, while he recognized the cause of 
his failure ; and though his soul flamed with the 
message he felt that God Avished him to deliver, he 
resolved to retire, and resume in the quiet of St. 
Mark's his commentaries on the Bible which he 
then knew by heart. Tliese lectures were primarily 
intended for his beloved " angels," as he called the 
white-robed boys of St. Mark's, who had come to 
follow in the way of him whom Dante named — 

" The lovinj? minion of the Christian Fuitli, 
The hallowed wrestler, gentle to his own, 
And to his enemies terrible." 

love of the Bible may have been seized as a pretext by those who, 
unlike him, rejected the authority of the Church as a divinely 
appointed interpreter, to class him with Protestants." 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 17 

Subsequently, however, as we shall see, others 
sought admittance, and were kindly received. 

In the Lent of 1484, and again in 1485, Savona- 
rola was sent as preacher to the little republic of 
San Gemignano, among whose people simplicity 
went hand in hand with faith and piety. Stran- 
gers to the refinements and the debaucheries of 
Florence, they listened with reverence and in a 
truly penitential spirit, as the orator gave free 
vent to his righteous indignation because of the 
prevailing sins of Italy. At San Gemignano he 
foretold some of the calamities which subsequently 
fell upon the land.^ 

During the succeeding four years Savonarola 
varied his scholastic work by preaching in various 
towns. In the summer of 1489 his superiors with- 
drew him from the missionary field, and recalled 
him to St. Mark's.2 

1 In 1484 he also preached in Brescia, to the people of which 
he declared that certain defined chastisements would fall on them. 
The fulfilment of this prediction Madden and other biographers 
find in the scourge of 1500, which came with the pillage of the 
town by the French. Assuredly the coincidence is striking. 

2 For the statement of Villari and others that this change was 
made at the request of Lorenzo de' Medici there is not sufficient 
evidence. A seeming basis for their supposition they find in an 
incident that occurred in 1482. In that year Savonarola attended 
a Chapter of his Province held at Reggio. Among the distin- 
guished scholars who were present as guests of the Brethren, in- 
terested in the disputations which relieved the more solemn and 
formal features of such assemblies, was Pico della Mirandola. 
Either because of a personal introduction to Savonarola as the 
opening of an acquaintance, or merely through admiration aroused 
by his talents, Pico formed a strong attachment to the friar. A 



18 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

At first he discoursed only to the Brethren, 
but soon liis fame spread; and despite that Lom- 
bard tongue which grated on Tuscan ears, laymen 
crowded to hear the man whose power they felt, 
and to whose words they listened as the utterance 
of one who knew whereof he spoke. St. Mark's 
could not contain all who Avished to share in the 
lecturer's teaching. Despite his unsparing labors, 
these were daj^s of rest, of calm, of preparation 
for the greater labors and for the trials that were 
in waiting. " Thus," as Mrs. Oliphant gracefully 
writes, " the first chapter of Fra Girolamo's his- 
tory ends, under the damask rose-tree in the warm 
July weather, within those white cloisters of San 
Marco. In the full eye of day, in the pulpit and 
the public places of Florence, as prophet, spiritual 
ruler, apostle among men, was the next period of 
his life to be passed. Here his probation ends." 

few years later, it is alleged, he used his influence with Lorenzo 
to secure tlie permanent assignment of Savonarola to St. Mark's. 
That the Dominican Superior should accede to such a request, if 
made by Lorenzo, would not have been inconsistent with religious 
discipline, especially as the growing repute of the young lecturer 
had already become the theme of frequent discussion among the 
Florentines. If Lorenzo did procure the recall of Savonarola, he 
probably had no anticipation of the consequences involved, nor 
did he think that in this friar he wouhl find his firmest opponent 
on behalf of Florentine liberty and reformation. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 19 



V. 



LENTEN DISCOURSES. — PRIOR OF ST. MARK'S. — RELA- 
TIONS WITH LORENZO DE' MEDICI. {1490-1492.) 

Yielding to the urgent requests of the laymen 
who thronged the spacious cloisters and garden to 
hear his discourses, Savonarola announced, towards 
the end of the month, that on Sunday, Aug. 1st, 
1490, he would speak from St. Mark's pulpit; and, 
as Burlamacchi tells us, he added, "I shall speak 
for eight years." 

He delivered his first discourse, feeling that he 
had indeed entered on a divinely appointed work. 
This he outlined in three propositions, the spirit 
of which pervaded his sermons during the entire 
period of his public ministry. The Church of 
God, he declared, needs reformation ; ^ Italy will 
be scourged ; and these things will soon come to 
pass. Witli these propositions as texts, and with 
the wealth of Scripture as a storehouse from which 
to draw, he scattered with a lavish hand the gath- 
ered fruits of years spent in meditation, in prayer, 
and in grief for the unhappy conditions prevail- 
ing. "Swift and fiery" was tlie natural eloquence 
of the man, who, arguing that mere elegance of 

1 From witUin, and only in discii)line and morals. 



20 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

diction was of minor importance, disregarded many 
of the forms prescribed by art. The effect pro- 
duced on the Florentines by the friar's sermons 
was notable. 

Some held him to be a man of God, a prophet ; 
others claimed that he was a fanatic, to whose 
raving denunciations sensible men would pay no 
heed. That his opponents, as well as admirers, 
continued to flock to St. Mark's, overtaxing the 
capacity of the convent church, proves the extra- 
ordinary interest awakened and sustained by the 
preacher who vigorously censured the vices of his 
time, and confidently foretold the coming calami- 
ties, chastisements sent by the God of justice. 

That great " contradictions " arose against him, 
as Burlamacchi declares, we may readily believe. 
It could not have been otherwise. He had an- 
ticipated this ; he knew that prophets liad been 
murdered ; for himself he foretold the same fate. 

The friar's study of his Divine Master had been 
too loving and faithful to leave any doubt in his 
mind, or any vain expectation in his heart, as to 
the reward awaiting his mission.^ 

The Lent of 1491 found him in the pulpit of 
Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral cluirch of 
Florence, generally known as the Duomo, from the 
grand dome surmounting this splendid pile. The 

1 " I entered the cloister," he said in one of liis sermons, " to 
suffer; and when sufferings visited me I made a study of them, 
and they taught me to love always and to forgive alwaj'"S." 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 21 

solemn grandeur of this stately edifice, of which 
Michael Angelo had said that, if smaller than St. 
Peter's in Rome, it was not less fair, was well 
adapted to the new preacher for whom St. Mark's 
had proved too small. Lest the reader should in- 
fer that Savonarola's audience consisted chiefly of 
the "plain people," we deem it well to state that 
he had prudently anticipated the objections that 
scholars might bring against his reprobation of 
the immoral effects of merely pagan training. To 
meet the learned, whose false principles he had 
branded, and to prove that he spoke not from 
opposition to true culture, but in behalf of solid 
erudition and piety, he published several works that 
soon asserted their just influence over the leading 
literati^ many of whom became his most attentive 
heai-ers in the Duomo. Hundreds, we are told, of 
the people rose at midnight, coming to the church, 
where they waited patiently for the opening of 
the doors. No inconvenience or suffering daunted 
them. They instinctively felt the goodness, the 
truth, of the friar wlio spoke to them, even in '' ter- 
rible sermons ; " they felt that he loved them, that 
he wished to keep them from going astray. Every 
manner of evil was condemned, but particularly 
the predominant sins of the day, — gambling, 
usury, avarice, revenge, impurity. At the same 
time he exhorted his hearers to the practice of 
every virtue, inculcating with exceeding tender- 
ness the duty of prayer, of charity, and of forgive- 
ness of enemies. 



22 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

The "contradictions " increased. Many thought 
religiously of the preacher's flaming words, and 
rene\Yed the spirit of their earl}^ faith ; others 
considered the unhappy state of their city, robbed 
of lier liberty, and hoped that the mighty reformer 
in religion would also aid in the struggle for civil 
freedom ; while a third party, chiefly among the 
followers of Lorenzo, threatened to exile the bold 
stranger. These divided opinions caused a mo- 
ment's hesitation on Savonarola's part as to the 
wisdom of discussing political affairs, or of an- 
nouncing prophecies. However, after reflection, 
he resolved to continue. 

The Lenten course lie finished under circum- 
stances tliat evidenced the esteem in which he was 
held not only among the people, but among the 
nominal rulers of the city. Shortly after Easter, 
on the special invitation of the Signory,^ he ap- 
peared in the palace, and before their Excellencies 
delivered a stirring discourse on virtue in public 
officials and on the sins of tyrants. 

It was plain to all that Lorenzo was the man to 
whom the bold words of the preacher were di- 
rected ; nevertheless, " the Magnificent " took no 
measures against the friar. 

In July, 1491, Savonarola was elected Prior of 

1 Under this title is designated tlie supreme officials, or eight 
priors, chosen two from each quarter of the city, with one at their 
head who was known as the Gonfaloniere, or standard-bearer. 
They were elected for two months. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 23 

St. Mark's. He began Lis administration by enfor- 
cing stricter discipline among the Brethren. He 
also manifested his unyielding courage and in- 
dependence by disregarding a custom which had 
previously been observed by newly elected priors 
during the Medicean regime^ — a visit to the prince, 
as an act of quasi-homage, and as a petition for his 
favor to the community. He refused to call on 
Lorenzo, sharply telling those who urged his going 
that it was to God and not to Lorenzo that he owed 
his election. 

Then began a series of efforts on the part of 
"the Magnificent" to win over the man whom he 
considered a stranger in his house, but who would 
not stoop to pay him a visit. Apparently the first 
citizen of Florence recognized the mettle of the 
friar; nor could he deny to himself that such a 
man was worth winning, even if he were obliged 
to condescend to pay the stranger a visit. 

Lorenzo was keener in his study of character 
than were the flatterers about him. He wished, if 
possible, to win the friendship of a man whom in 
his heart he admired, even though that man had 
both attacked and repulsed him. Accordingly he 
went to St. Mark's several times, and, having heard 
Mass, walked in the garden. It was natural that 
the Brethren should greet him and show him at- 
tention, for his grandfather had built their con- 
. vent, and gratitude might be appropriately and 
with courtesy manifested to the grandson. Ap- 



24 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

prised of his presence, Savonarola demanded if 
Lorenzo had asked for him. Being informed that 
Lorenzo had not asked for him, he bluntl}^ an- 
swered, " Then let him go or stay as he pleases." 

While admiring the spirit of Savonarola, we are 
tempted to regret that he did not meet Lorenzo. 
Without any sacrifice of dignity this could have 
been effected, as Lorenzo had practically " gone 
half way."i 

Though thus rebuffed, "the Magnificent" did 
not desist from his efforts to see the prior, to win 
him. Generous gifts were offered to St. Mark's, 
and gold pieces w-ere dropped into the alms-box, 
to the surprise of the friars. Tliey were further 
surprised when Savonarola sent ail the gold to 
"the good men of St. Martin," a charitable organi- 
zation, and kept only the silver and copper for the 
Brethren. It must be admitted that the seeming 
bribe involved in this action of Lorenzo deserved 
reprobation if not contempt. He w^ofully mis- 
judged the new prior, who, as he forcibly put it, 
would not be kept from barking because his mas- 
ter's enemy had thrown him a bone. 

Lorenzo next tried to influence Savonarola by 
sending to him a delegation of five distinguished 
citizens who had been instructed to speak as if 
they had gone of their own accord. They waited 

1 Perhaps the course of events might have been changed had 
these men first met then, and not, as the story goes, at Lorenzo's 
death-bed, and had they known each other more intimately. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA, 25 

on the prior, and suggested to him the advisability 
of abstaining from political references in his ser- 
mons. They counselled him to moderate his style, 
for prudence and for the sake of his community. 
He listened, and tlien unliesitatingly told them that 
they did not speak for themselves, tliat tliey were 
only Lorenzo's messengers, to whom they should 
return with his answer : " I am a stranger, and I 
shall remain; Lorenzo is a citizen, even the first, 
but he must depart." It was on this occasion that 
he predicted, in tlie presence of several, tlie speedy 
deaths of Pope Innocent VIII., and of the Mag- 
nificent. The fulfilment of this prophecy added 
later to his fame. 

Baffled by such determination and courage, Lo- 
renzo resolved on a final stroke through which he 
hoped to accomplish the ruin of Savonarola in the 
public esteem. A certain Father Mariano, of the 
Augustinians, had attained some celebrity as an 
orator of the Florentine school. He was thor- 
oughly classical. Lorenzo urged him to return to 
his pulpit, and Mariano at once responded. In the 
Church of San Gallo, on the feast of the Ascension, 
he announced as his text the seventh verse of the 
first chapter of the Acts of tlie Apostles : " It is 
not for you to know the times or moments, which 
the Father hath put in his own power." Building 
a vehement and harsh discourse on this text, he not 
only strove to carry out the suggestions of Lorenzo 
by denouncing recent prophecies, but he exceeded 



26 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

all reasonable bounds by attacking Savonarola as an 
impostor. Even Lorenz^o heard him with dissatis- 
faction ; others went away indignant and disgusted. 
Father Mariano lost his hard-won reputation ; Sa- 
vonarola, through a masterly answer, increased his 
fame and influence. Lorenzo made no further at- 
tempt either to harass or to win the indomitable 
Prior of St. Mark's.^ 

1 It does not appear that common friends endeavored to ar- 
range a meeting between the two great men. If the attempt were 
made, it failed. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 27 



VI. 

THE DEATH-BED OF LORENZO DE' MEDICI. 

The year 1491 passed away without any other 
notable occurrence. In the spring of 1492 Lo- 
renzo was prostrated by the disease that had for 
some time been making serious inroads on a con- 
stitution originally vigorous. Though only forty- 
four, the Magnificent felt that his end was drawing 
near. Then the Faith which had slumbered began 
to assert its influence ; his heart, never hardened in 
evil, yielded. From scenes of carnival revelry, from 
the vanity of learning, from the music of his own 
songs, he turned away. Though he had already 
made a confession, he expressed a desire to see the 
Prior of St. Mark's, and indeed sent a messenger, 
requesting Savonarola to visit him. The prior 
went, but with misgivings which he expressed. 

Were it given to liistorian or writer to read the 
hearts of those two men as Savonarola entered the 
apartment of Lorenzo, a picture vivid and dramatic 
might be drawn. For Lorenzo it was the supreme, 
because the closing moment of his career; for Sa- 
vonarola it was an occasion demanding the fullest 
expression of his high moral courage, the exercise 
of the most delicate care, charity, and prudence. 



28 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

With differences of detail that leave one in doubt, 
the scene in the chamber of Lorenzo, as prince and 
friar met for the first and last time on earth, is de- 
scribed by historians and biographers. We follow 
Burlamacchi : " Father, three sins especially bur- 
den me, and I desire to confess them, — the sack of 
Volterra, the robbery of the Monte delle Fanciulle, 
and the massacres after the Pazzi conspiracy." ^ 

" Lorenzo," Savonarola answered, " do not de- 
spair. God is infinitely merciful, and to 3^ou will 
He show mercy if you will do three things." 

" Wliat are they ? " the dying man asked. 

" The first is that you must have a strong faith, 
believing that God can and will pardon you." 

"I do believe," Lorenzo answered. 

" You must also," the prior continued, " restore 
all ill-gotten goods, or impose on your sons the 
obligation of so doing." 

Lorenzo hesitated, showed how keenly he felt 
this, but after a while agreed to tlic prior's demand. 

" And lastly," said Savonarola, as he gazed sol- 
emnly and fixedly on the Magnificent, now so 
sorry a spectacle, *' you must restore to Florence 
her liberty." 

To this Lorenzo made no answer, only turn- 
ing his face awa}^ The stern friar then left the 
apartment. 

There is much uncertainty as to the meaning and 
importance of this scene. As tragic, unmatched in 

1 See Roscoe's "Life of Lorenzo de' Medici." 




LORENZO DE' MEDICI. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 29 

history, some would paint it, investing with a living 
interest the episode of that spring morning more 
than four hundred years ago, when the Magnifi- 
cent lay dying in his splendid villa among the 
beauties of nature and art that he had perhaps 
loved too well. Even accej)ting Burlamacchi's 
account, and agreeing with Villari's estimate of 
its significance, we observe that it is not evident 
that Lorenzo sent for Savonarola for the purpose 
of confession. Certainly no sacramental confession 
was made. Already Lorenzo had been absolved 
by another priest. May it not have been a desire 
on his part for reconciliation with the prior that 
prompted the dying man to send for him ? Ad- 
mitting, however, that Lorenzo intended to seek 
absolution from Savonarola, it is a question whether 
the latter's jurisdiction as a confessor extended 
to the matter of his third demand. Moreover, 
Lorenzo had his own right of conscience ; and 
apparently he maintained his own view when the 
matter was presented to him, for previously he did 
not refer to this phase of the interview, which was 
exclusively of Savonarola's suggestion and de- 
mand. Such an incident is available for word- 
painting. Belonging, however, to the domain of 
conscience, and lacking the proofs necessary for the 
detailed circumstances of the visit, we prefer to 
pass it over in the silence of charity for the dying 
man, and without judgment as to Savonarola's 
rights and powers in the case. 



30 JEROME SAVONABOLA. 



VII. 

THE FRIAB'S VISIONS, JOURNEYS, LABORS.— REFORM OF 
THE CONVEJS^TS. (1492-1494.) 

Savonarola continued Lis sermons during 
1492, increasing audiences testifying to his grow- 
ing power and influence.^ He liad a fond love for 
the fair city of his adoption, and he longed to see 
her free ; but it was the liberty of the children of 

1 The reins that had fallen from the lifeless hands of Lorenzo 
were taken by Piero de' Medici, who inherited some of his father's 
good qualities, but these were not in the line of statesmanship. 
As a gallant and an athlete this young man might have achieved 
success ; as the pilot of the vessel of state he was doomed to a 
miserable shipwreck. He alienated many of his father's stanch 
adherents, while he outraged the sensibilities of the citizens by 
ignoring some of the republican forms of liberty which, for the 
crafty deception of the people, had been preserved during Loren- 
zo's life. Moreover, the "contradictions" engendered among 
Savonarola's hearers became more bitter. Unfortunately these 
factional divisions of the people seemed to mark him as a mere 
party representative of those who were opposed to the Medici. 
Yet it may be justly said that no such position was deliberately 
assumed or desired by him, at least for mere political j)urposes. 

The immediate followers of Savonarola were generally known 
as the Piagnoni, or " "Weepers." So we shall designate them. 
There were other factions known as the Bif/i, or the "Grays," 
who favored the Medici; the Blanchi, or the "Whites," an ex- 
treme group of the socialist or red republican brand ; and the 
Arrabbiati, or the " Enraged," so called from their bitter opposi- 
tion to Savonarola, and their fury against his sway. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 31 

God, the fruit and crown of holy living, that he 
yearned for.^ 

His ardor for this work was further inflamed by 
two visions, which are recorded as having been 
vouchsafed to him during this year, the one in 
Lent, the other in Advent. 

From the city of Rome, on Good Friday night, 
he beheld a black cross rising to tlie heavens and 
extending its dread shadow over the world, wliile 
amid lightning and thunder the angry sky reflected 
back the w^ords inscribed on the cross : " The 
Cross of the wTath of God." Immediately after- 
wards he saw a golden cross mounting from Jeru- 
salem, filling the heavens Avith beautiful light, so 
that the worshipping world, as the peoples hastened 
to it, could clearl}^ read the comforting words : 
"The Cross of the mercy of God." 

At the close of Advent the second vision ap- 
peared to him. Distinct in the sky he beheld a 
hand grasping a naked sword, on which were in- 
scribed the words : " The sword of the Lord will 

1 "God is essentially free, and the just man is free after the 
likeness of God. The only true liberty consists in the desire for 
righteousness. It seems to you that a good friar has no liberty, 
because he has submitted his will to that of others; but his free- 
dom is greater than that of laymen exactly because he wills to do 
that which is commanded by others. What liberty has he who 
is ruled by his passions? Now, in our case, O Florence! do you 
desire liberty ? Citizens, would you be free? First of all, love 
God, love your neighbor, love one another; seek the general wel- 
fare. If you have this love and union, true liberty will also be 
yours." These words, from one of Savonarola's sermons, embody 
the spirit and purpose of all his labors. 



32 JEROJIE SAVONAROLA. 

soon swiftly descend on the earth." While the 
thunder pealed and the lightning flashed, and 
arrows and daggers seemed to fall on the world 
given over to rapine and bloodshed, he heard 
voices proclaiming mercy to the repentant, pun- 
ishment to the obstinate, and bidding him warn 
the people that the Divine wi-ath might yet be 
averted.^ 

During 1492 the prior had visited Pisa on mis- 
sionary labors, but his absences were brief. In 
1493, however, he was assigned to Bologna as the 
Lenten preacher.^ 

Considerable success attended his efforts in Bo- 
logna ; but he was eager to return to Florence, 
where, as he had learned, affairs were in a perilous 
condition. At this time a change was effected 
that was of great importance to his work. After 
much difficulty he secured the separation of St. 
Mark's from the Lombard jurisdiction of the Or- 
der. This step was taken in conformity with the 
laws of the Dominican Order, and as a return to 
the conditions existing previously to 1448, when 

1 It is easy to realize bow the announcement of such visions, 
apart from any question of their divine origin, must have affected 
the Florentines. 

2 It is charged by writers unfriendly to the Holy See that this 
was done at the instance of Piero do' Medici. Proof is lacking. 
The Dominican authorities were capable of administering their 
office without the intervention of the civil power. The writers 
who see politics in every event of Savonarola's life, as the main- 
spring of superiors' actions, only belittle the man and damage his 
cause by such insinuations. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 33 

the Tuscan convents formed an independent Con- 
gregation or Province. This Province of Tuscany 
was restored by the Holy See, and under its own 
Provincial was made su])ject directly to the Master 
General. Over this new division Savonarola was 
placed with full ordinary 2:)0wer. Piero had re- 
quested this change probably in deference to Tus- 
can sentiment, and Avithout seeming to understand 
that it established Savonarola, as a resident of 
Florence, beyond tlie power of such removal as 
he had hitherto been subject to. 

He organized the convents under his jurisdiction ^ 
according to strict discipline ; and so great was the 
fervor of the Brethren of St. Mark's, the centre of 
the reform, so strong had its attractions become, 
that the building was found inadequate for the ac- 
commodation of those who sought admission to the 
cloister. In a short time this community num- 
bered more than two hundred friars, among whom 
not only was the study of philosophy and tlieology 
maintained at a high standard, but the arts were 
also assiduously cultivated. Savonarola likewise 
fostered missionary zeal in an eminently Apostolic 



1 The convent at Fiesole was among the first to join the reform 
movement. The community of Prato was transferred to the ju- 
risdiction of the Tuscan Province by command of the Pope, who 
ordered the enforcement of the rule, under the direction of Savo- 
narola. This action would indicate not only Alexander's accep- 
tance of Savonarola's plea for the maintenance of his independent 
authority, hut also the high regard of the Pontiff for the friar's 
religious spirit. 



34 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

spirit, so that St. Mark's was truly the house of 
God and the home of Christian art and science. 

In the Advent of 1493, Savonarola resumed his 
preaching in Florence, continuing during the Lent 
of 1494 the splendid discourses on faith, morals, 
and politics, or rather on the science of politics as 
founded in religion and conscience. These ser- 
mons included the famous series on Noah's Ark 
which he had commenced in 1492. 

Frequently during the year and a half that had 
elapsed from the death of Lorenzo till the autumn 
of 1494, Savonarola had announced to the people 
the coming of a new Cyrus, who, as a scourge, 
would be the instrument of the Divine Justice. On 
Sept. 21st he spoke on the Deluge. The Duomo 
was crowded with an expectant multitude. The 
preacher's Avords were as fire. When simultane- 
ously with the thunder of Savonarola's eloquence, 
tl:\p terrible tidings spread that the French King 
was crossing the Alps to invade Ital}^ the Flor- 
entines were, more than ever, perturbed. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA, 35 



VIII. 

PATRIOTISM OF THE FRIAR DURING THE FRENCH 
INVASION. 

To make clear this episode in Savonarola's career 
a brief explanation is necessary of the political 
complications which occasioned the expedition of 
Charles VIII. of France, an event which, as Mach- 
iavelli wrote, "ruined Italy, and kept her in deso- 
lation;" and, as Gibbon declared, ''changed the 
face of Europe." Of this invasion Villari writes 
that it "proved to be the beginning of the long 
series of disasters which were to desolate Italy for 
ages, to destroy her commercial prosperity, to stifle 
her literary and scientific culture, and to extin- 
guish every spark of her liberty." 

A benefactor to all Europe, the eyes of Italy's 
neighbors were turned in eagerness and avarice 
on this fair domain of culture, wealth, and power. 
The growing states of Europe were ready, from 
motives of greed and conquest, from the very spirit 
of restlessness and brigandage pervading the royal 
and noble robbers of those days, to act against 
weaker powers. Italy was weak because of her 
divisions. Among the Italian states the lordsliip 
of Milan was then held by Ludovico Sforza, sur- 



36 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

named the Moor. This unprincipled man, the 
guardian of his minor nephew, tlie lightful Duke 
of Milan, usurped the place of his charge, imj^ris- 
oned him, and it is alleged, poisoned him. The 
young duke had married the daughter of the King 
of Naples, who naturally resented the cruel treat- 
ment of his daughter and her husband. The anger 
of this monarch, the usurper dreaded, as he also 
feared the just indignation of other Italian rulers. 

After attempting various schemes, lie resolved 
to secure for himself a powerful ally by urging 
Charles of Anjou, King of France, to come to 
Italy and claim, though on a baseless title, the 
Neapolitan throne. Charles came, with sixty thou- 
sand men, and calamity followed his march. Sa- 
vonarola saw in the French monarch another Cja-us, 
an instrument of justice and of punishment. 

Respecting Florence, however, events took a 
turn most embarrassing and disadvantageous to 
the Republic. The party opposed to Piero de- 
sired the coming of the king, in the hope that 
the Medici might be expelled. Piero adopted a 
policy of opposition to Charles, but failed to sustain 
it by any decided action. He excited the king's 
anger, and then foolishly hastened to put himself 
in Charles's power by surrendering, without any 
compensation, three of Tuscany's most important 
fortresses. He also promised, in return for the 
royal protection, to raise a large sum of money 
for Charles. These actions angered the Floren- 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 37 

tines. As a visitor passing through their territory 
they would have welcomed the French monarch ; 
but his coming as an enemy, that would not be 
placated even by Piero's surrender of their for- 
tresses and promised gift of money, terrified tliem. 
At this juncture, while the French king was yet 
distant from the city, Florentine ambassadors 
followed Piero, hoping to make honorable terms 
with Charles, but he put them off with vain words. 

These events occurred early in November. The 
French were then on Florentine territory, and by 
the force of their numbers and military equipment, 
Tuscany lay helpless before them. In the mean- 
time the tidings of their advance had reached Flor- 
ence, where a scene of disorder and riotous murder 
would have been the natural result among an en- 
raged people who believed they had been betrayed 
by their incompetent and cowardly "first citizen." 

At this moment of extreme peril Savonarola^ 
was the one man to whom all the citizens looked. 
While the Signory held counsel with men of re- 
pute and patriotism, the prior ascended the pulpit 
of the Duomo. His spirit seemed to penetrate the 
vast assembly as he stretched over them his hands, 
and solemnly announced to them that the time had 
come for repentance, now that his prophecies were 
fulfilled. "" 

Over hearts seething with anger and vengeance, 
over minds devising ways and means of executing 
speedy justice on the Medici, God's grace and light 



38 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

fell, through the preacher's marvellous discourse; 
and the mighty throng went out from the Duomo, 
filled with a spirit of forgiveness towards their 
enemies, and with the patient courage that marks 
true patriotism. Savonarola had saved Florence 
from scenes of blood and rapine.^ The work of 
the Signory was thus rendered comparatively easy. 
Instead of a revolutionary mob, they found a prac- 
tically united people, ready to face the difficulties 
and dangers that threatened. 

Though preparing for defence, the Florentines 
deemed it advisable to send another embassy to 
Charles. Of this body Savonarola was a member. 
He did not, however, accompany the citizens who 
liad been commissioned with him, but following 
them, in the company of some of his brethren, he 
went out to meet the French king, who was en- 
camped at Pisa. During Savonarola's absence on 
this embassy the indignant Florentines expelled 
Piero de' Medici (who had returned to the city), 
and his brother, the Cardinal, afterwards Leo the 
Tenth. 

1 " It would be well," writes Dr. Clark, " for those who think 
of the friar as a wild fanatic eager for power, burning with hatred 
against the Medici, and unscrupulous in his denunciations of 
the enslavers of Florence, to study his conduct at this crisis. 
One word from him and the city would have been given up to 
revolt and confusion. One word from him, and the palace of the 
Medici and all its treasures would have perished forever." The 
power and goodness of the prior were felt by Cardinal de' Medici, 
who brought many of the family valuables and placed them in 
his care at St. Mark's. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 39 

The lay ambassadors accomplished little with 
the French. Charles would make no promises 
beyond a general declaration that all would be 
arranged after his entrance into the city. On the 
arrival of Savonarola, of whose prophecies con- 
cerning himself Charles had heard, the monarch 
granted speedy audience to the friar. 

The accounts of this interview differ in details, 
but on essential points the historians are agreed. 
It was a picturesque scene. Savonarola spoke 
fearlessly, telling the most Christian king that, as 
the messenger of God, he greeted him who came 
as the instrument of God, to punish the guilty and 
to protect the innocent. "Nevertheless," he con- 
tinued, "hearken to the warning of God's unworthy 
servant. For the sake of the many just and virtu- 
ous who are in Florence, spare that city. Reform 
the abuses which afflict God's Church. If these 
things are done, thy kingdom will be increased. 
But if thou dost neglect the work which the Lord 
hath called thee to do, another will be set in thy 
place, and His wrath will scourge thee. These 
things I declare to thee in the name of the Lord." 

The king did not commit himself, though seem- 
ingly moved by Savonarola's address. The latter 
returned to Florence, bringing comfort to the 
people even by his presence, though he bore mes- 
sages scarcely more satisfactory than those of the 
other ambassadors. Cliarles would arrange no 
terms for an understanding or treaty with the 



40 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

Florentines until lie had passed through their 
gates. 

On Nov. 17th, many of his officers having pre- 
viously arrived, the French monarch was received 
with pomp by tlie Signory, who liad provided for 
him and liis immediate suite in the splendid Medici 
palace. The visit lasted ten days, and during this 
time Charles proved himself to be a troublesome as 
well as a dishonest guest. Previous to the ratifi- 
cation of a treaty, which had been the occasion of 
much dispute, the arrogant monarch showed a dis- 
position to act liarshly, threatening even to sack 
the city. Again were Savonarola's efforts success- 
ful among the people for the preservation of peace, 
and for the avoidance of strife or collision with 
the foreign troops who were scattered through the 
city. Once more he brought his personal influ- 
ence to bear directly on the king. Having sought 
the royal presence, without introduction or hesita- 
tion he bluntly told Charles that his Majesty's stay 
was causing great injury to the people and the city, 
as well as to the work which God had imposed 
on him, reproaching him for losing valuable tinie.^ 
He urged Charles to pursue his journey without 
further delay, or his woi-ldly fame, as well as his 
spiritual interests, would suffer. He concluded 
by threatening tlie king with the wrath of God 
if he inflicted any injury on the city. These brave 

1 We quote Savonarola's words, without passing any judgment 
as to his views of the campaign of the French king. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 41 

words had the desired effect. Charles resumed his 
march, carrying witli liim, however, despite the 
generous treatment he had received, many art treas- 
ures that had been collected by tlie Medici. As 
the royal plunderer had numerous imitators among 
officers and soldiers, it is not surprising that the 
indignation and hatred of the Florentines followed 
the French army on its way to Naples. 



42 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



IX. 



THE FRIAR'S SERVICES TO THE FLORENTINE REPUBLIC. 

(1494-1495.) 

If Savonarola's services to the Florentines had 
been of inestimable value during the troublous 
days of the French visit, when the grateful love 
of the people had loudly proclaimed their debt to 
the prior, the assistance he rendered subsequently 
was not of less importance. Great confusion pre- 
vailed, in consequence of the expulsion of Piero 
de' Medici, whose "reign" in the "Republic" 
closed sixty years of Medicean rule, under which 
the foundations of liberty had been destroyed, a 
mere semblance of liberty having been preserved by 
the continuance of certain forms and names, from 
which all spirit and living meaning had departed. 
A strong government was needed, and the friends of 
Florentine freedom realized that vigorous measures 
must be adopted. 

Among a people of high temper and ardent spirit, 
passing througli such a crisis, there was special 
need of a prudent and clear-sighted leader. Sa- 
vonarola did not assume that post; events deter- 
mined it for him. Many looked to him as the 
man of the hour, providentially set for a great 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 43 

work. He was not only faithful to expectations 
that had been aroused, but by his sermons, his 
entreaties to the rich to be generous, to the poor 
to be patient, to employers to provide opportunities 
for labor, to all to practise mutual charity, to be 
faithful in prayer and piety, lie established the 
temporary empire of religion over Florence, and 
wonderfully smoothed the way for political recon- 
struction, in which, as yet, he had taken no direct 
part.^ But as Villari well says, ''The hour had 
struck for his appearance in the arena of politics, 
and notwithstanding the firm determination with 
which he had hitherto held aloof from it, he was 
now compelled to obey the summons by the pres- 
sure of events." 

The appearance of Savonarola in the political 
arena as the champion of liberty is an event signi- 
ficant in itself, though the history of Florence, and 
Italian history in general, furnish many notable 
instances of saintly men, and even women, who en- 
tered into the public life of their day for the bet- 
terment of civil affairs. On two points his most 
severe critics must render homage to the truth : 
(1) Savonarola Avas a preacher, a religious, a priest 
of holiness beyond dispute, waiving his relations 
with Alexander VI. ; (2) Savonarola was the moral 
and political regenerator of Florence. 

1 For an account of the cumbrous method of Florentine politi- 
cal administration, see Villari's "Life and Times of Jerome Sa- 
vonarola; " Symonds's " Age of the Despots ; " or the histories of 
Florence and Italy mentioned in our Appendix. 



44 JERQUE SAVONAROLA. 

Disinterested, unselfish, his big, brave heart was 
filled with love for the people, with solicitude for 
the welfare of tlie poor, with zeal for the salvation 
of souls. No thought of winning political power 
was his ; he simply used the rich gifts with which 
God had endowed him, as he felt divinely urged, 
to speak and act for the people.^ 

On the third Sunday of Advent, 1494, his ser- 
mon indicated the trend of his thoughts on affairs 
of state. He laid the foundation deep in religion, 
love of God, mercy and charity towards all, for- 
giveness of enemies, forgetfulness of past injuries 
and wrongs, the pardon and restoration of those 
who had been identified with Piero. He pleaded 
for such a government as would best assure the in- 
terest of all, and best serve the welfare of the pub- 
lic as against that of individuals. ^ He urged a 
rectification of taxes, a more equable distribution 
of these burdens among the rich and the poor. 
Finally he recommended the formation of a Grand 
Council, after the manner of the Venetians. 
Within two weeks the political measures which he 
had outlined were carried into effect. Out of a 
helpless, almost chaotic condition, the friar had 

1 No material interest of St. Mark's Convent or of the Church 
in general influenced his conduct. Rather, he cried out, " Cease 
from huilding churches; yea, the very gold and silver of the 
sanctuary convert into money that the poor may be fed, and I 
shall lead the way." 

2 Madden gives an English translation of his treatise on " The 
Rule and Government of the Florentine People." 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 45 

evolved order ; he had suppressed civil rebellion, 
and held in check a most excitable people. To 
lawyers and men versed in politics he gave such 
a lesson in statecraft that all were amazed at his 
practical knowledge of public affairs. 

Onl}^ one measure that he recommended was 
doomed to failure. lie urged the formation of a 
select court of last resort as a check on the arbi- 
trary power of the bench of judges, who were 
known as " The Eight." Savonarola's w^ise sug- 
gestion was not adopted. The court was not es- 
tablished, though the right of appeal was admitted 
to the Grand Council, a body numbering several 
thousand. Thougli only one-third of this body 
acted at a time, and for a given period, it was too 
unwieldy for the delicate and deliberative respon- 
sibilities contemplated by Savonarola. He recom- 
mended the establishment of the Monte di Pietd ^ 
for the temporary relief of the deserving poor by 
loans at moderate interest, thus freeing thousands 
from the clutches of the usurers, whose system of 
compounding interest was a legalized method of 
robbery.2 

During the closing days of 1494 the Republic 

1 Pious Banks, — a free rendering:. 

2 This generous service to the people aroused the anger of the 
money-changers, adding to the political enemies of Savonarola a 
comhination of bankers and usurers who continued in their pur- 
suit of vengeance till his downfall was accomplished. The mod- 
ern pawn-shop is the evolution, by a downward progress and with 
disregard of religion, of the mediaeval Monte di Pieta. 



46 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

was re-established, the result being largely the 
achievement of the prior, to whom nearly all had 
turned in the hour of peril. The work was rapidly 
developed. By the end of 1495 the people enjoyed 
liberty to sucli a degree that the government never 
more truly deserved the name of Republic. The 
city had been transformed. 

Indeed, Savonarola had proclaimed from the pul- 
pit the freedom of the children of God, under the 
kingship of Jesus Christ over all hearts, and in a 
sense, it may be said that he established a Theoc- 
racy in the city where pagan ideas and manners 
had so lately reigned. Vice no longer stalked 
unrebuked in the streets ; rather had the reign of 
virtue been inaugurated. Were secret excesses 
diminished? Should youth be denied moderate 
amusements? These questions conservative men 
put one to another in Savonarola's day. It is to 
be feared that the city passed too rapidly from one 
extreme to the other, and that Savonarola encour- 
aged among an unprepared multitude the applica- 
tion of principles in details available only for the 
cloister. 



JEBOME SAVONABOLA. 47 



X. 

THE FEIAR SAVES FLORENCE FROM THE FRENCH KING. 

During 1495 Savonarola was unflagging in the 
work of preaching. At the beginning of the year 
a serious difficulty confronted him through the 
machinations of the Arrahhiati. These men sought 
the downfall of the Republic, in the hope of erect- 
ing on its ruins an aristocracy or oligarchy. 
Through their misrepresentations, the Pope was 
induced to order Savonarola to proceed to Lucca. 
The prior made ready to leave, but the Signory and 
many others, by most urgent letters, prevailed on 
His Holiness to reconsider his command. Savona- 
rola remained in Florence. 

Before the opening of his regular Lenten course, 
he preached several sermons, one of notable force 
and vehemence, in which ecclesiastical disorders 
and the sins of princes were unsparingly rebuked. 
The publication of this discourse, known as the 
" renewal sermon," was an occasion of bitter strife. 
His followers hailed it with delight. The Arrahhi- 
ati circulated it for the harm they hoped it would 
bring on the preacher, through the animosity of 
those in high places against whom he had so 
strongly spoken. How far this incident influenced 



48 JEBOME SAVOKAROLA. 

the tone of Savonarola's discourses durinor Lent we 
know not, but a sadness and gloom pervaded tliem. 
He frequently referred to the violent death that 
already he seemed clearly to foresee. Another 
event that sorely tried Savonarola's soul was the 
attempt made by his enemy, the Gonfaloniere Cor- 
bizzi, to liaA^e him condemned for interference in 
affairs of state. For this purpose Corbizzi sum- 
moned a council of theologians to the palace. 
Among them w^as a decided opponent of Savona- 
rola, in fact, his most obstinate assailant, a Domin- 
ican named Thomas of Rieti, a member of the 
community of Santa Maria Novella. 

Having heard the charges, Savonarola, to whom 
the purpose of the meeting had not previously 
been known (for he was accustomed to preach 
occasionally before the Signory), made a noble 
answer, first sharply scoring his Dominican oppo- 
nent, and then completely confounding the others 
by his dexterous defence.^ However, this action 

1 " In me," lie said, " is fulfilled that saying of the Lord, * FilH 
matris meaepugnaverunt contra me, — ' My mother's children have 
fought against me ' ; yet it grieves me to see that my fiercest op- 
ponent wears the liahit of St. Dominic. That habit should remind 
him that our Founder involved himself not a little in the things 
of this world ; that from our Order have gone forth saints and re- 
ligious who have concerned themselves in the doings of the state. 
Will the Republic of Florence remember the Cardinal Latino, St. 
Peter Martj-r, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Antonino, who all be- 
longed to the Order of St. Dominic ? It is not concerning our- 
selves with the doings of this world in which God has placed us 
that should be condemned in a religious, but it is doing so without 
having regard to a higher end, without an eye to the good of 
religion." 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 49 

of the Gonfaloniere sliowed that the tide was turn- 
ing against Savonarola, tliough the people still re- 
mained devoted to the friar, and thongli many of 
the influential men of the city were his most ardent 
admirers. 

Worn by anxieties and labors, and by a rigid 
discipline, Savonarola finished his Lenten sermons 
under extraordinary stress. The city took on a 
new life. Everywhere signs abounded of the 
reformation that had taken place. Multitudes 
thronged the confessionals ; restitution was made 
on a large scale by those who held unjust gains ; 
alms for the poor were abundant; the practice of 
prayer and spiritual reading and the singing of 
hymns gave a conventual air to the domestic 
hearth ; ribaldry and licentiousness among the 
reckless young men of the city were renounced ; 
pomp and vanity among the rich and lordly gave 
way to Christian modesty and simplicity. " As- 
suredly Savonarola was a reformer, but Catholic to 
the core in all the changes he wrought, though 
erring on the score of over strictness. All classes 
were amenable to his influence. From distant 
places many came, women and men, to hear the 
far-famed prior. The noblest families of Florence 
gave a strong proof of their veneration for Savona- 
rola in the free surrender of their sons to enter the 
Dominican Order as his followers. 

The changes he wrought in the customs of the 
people invited opposition, and this was supplied 



60 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

by the Arrahhiati^ who persistently waged a war- 
fare of petty spite against him. They hurled nick- 
names at the Piagnoni^ at all who held him in 
reverence, and sneeringly spoke of them as " toad- 
ies," " prayer-mumblers," " twisted necks." But 
as Villari pointedly says, " The Piagnoiii were the 
only determined defenders of the people's rights, 
the readiest to fly to arms when Florence was 
threatened by the French, the most generous in 
giving money to the state, and in tenderly succor- 
ing the poor who were suffering from the high 
price of food and scarcity of work. Their devo- 
tion to the Republic was the more tenacious be- 
cause liberty and religion Avere as one in their 
hearts ; and in all public emergencies it was only 
on these followers of the friar that the country 
could really depend." ^ 

1 Mr. Symonds claims that the Piagnoni were the backbone 
of the Florentine people, those who might have saved the state 
had a political salvation been possible for it. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 51 



XI. 



JiE FORMATION OF THE PEOPLE IN SPITE OF 
OPPOSITION. 

Charles VIII. proved untrue to his pledged 
word, to the treaty made with the Florentines, to 
the best purposes to which Savonarola had en- 
treated his devoted loyalty as an instrument of 
God. The end of May found him, accompanied 
by Piero de' Medici, at Siena, on his return jour- 
ney from the disastrous Neapolitan campaign. 
There he was met by ambassadors from Florence 
who desired to learn the line of his march. His 
treatment of them was insolent and threatening. 
Again was the aid of Savonarola invoked. The 
letter which he addressed to the French monarch 
is a noble document ; it proclaims the power and 
courage of the friar : — 

"Most Christian Sire, — It is the Lord's will that the 
Florentines should continue their alliance with your Maj- 
esty ; but He wishes your protection to extend the freedom 
of the people, not of any individual, for God has ordained 
the fall of all tyrants. The Lord will inflict terrible punish- 
ment on any private citizen who seeks to usurp, as in the 
past, the government of this flourishing Republic, which 
has been constituted, not by man, but by God. He has 



52 JEROME SAVONABOLA. 

chosen this city, to increase it. He has filled it with His 
servants ; whosoever touches it touches the apple of His 
eye. Therefore, Sire, if you will not obey Him by keep- 
ing your pledges to the Florentines, and restoring their for- 
tresses, many calamities will come upon you, and nations 
will rise against you." 

In a few days Savonarola foHowed this letter by 
going out to Poggibonsi, whither the king had ad- 
vanced. Again he spoke as the messenger of God, 
boldly telling Charles that his disobedience to God 
was the cause of his failure and losses. Savona- 
rola further declared that the king had provoked 
the Divine anger by his treachery to the Floren- 
tines, and by his refusal to effect the reforms for 
which God had called him. He concluded his ad- 
dress by warning him for the last time that, if he 
did not earnestly take up the work of God, still 
greater calamities would come upon him, and God 
would reject him. 

Charles no further annoyed the city of Florence. 
His ill-concealed friendliness for the Pisans, then 
in revolt against Florence, and his retention of the 
fortresses which Piero had so pusillanimously sur- 
rendered to him, occasioned, however, heavy loss 
and trouble to the Republic, while his encourage- 
ment of Piero emboldened the expelled prince to 
attempt a forcible entrance of the city. 

This attempt failed, but it occasioned a mani- 
festation of patriotism and courage on the part of 
the Florentines and their spiritual leader deserv- 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 53 

ing the highest praise. Savonarola's sermons at 
this time — October — were marked by a vigor and 
fire that some have considered excessive. But they 
do not justly weigh his words who separate them 
from the conditions and dangers out of which they 
sprang. As a true patriot Savonarola spoke. 



54 JEROME SAVONAROLA, 



XII. 

RELATIONS WITH THE POPE. (1495.) 

To the opinion of certain writers that Florence's 
opposition to the league of Italian states,^ of which 
the Pope was a member, irritated and angered 
Alexander VI. against Savonarola, we ought not 
to attach undue importance. Admitting that the 
friar's political attitude was offensive to the Pope, 
other circumstances were conspiring to draw the 
Pontiff's attention to the preacher. His sermons, 
in which ecclesiastical abuses were unsparingly 
lashed, were reported, perhaps in an exaggerated 
form, and were sent to Rome, with inflammatory- 
letters from his persistent enemies in Florence. 
The sovereign Pontiff was obliged to take notice of 
a man who had made powerful enemies among pre- 
lates of higbL rank, and who had become the storm 
centre, politically and ecclesiastically, of the day. 
The following letter was despatched to the Prior 
of St. Mark's, by Alexander, on July 25th, 1495 : — 

Beloved Son, — 

Health and Apostolic Blessing. Amongst the many who 
have labored in the vineyard of the Lord we have learned 

1 For the expulsion of the barbarians, as the French were called. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 65 

from several sources that your labors have been especially 
earnest and successful. This fills us with deep joy and 
gratitude to God, Who so powerfully works among us by 
His grace. Nor do we doubt but that you are an instru- 
ment in His hands for the abundant sowing of His Divine 
word, and the reaping of a plentiful harvest. JNIoreover, 
recent letters on this very subject have given us to under- 
stand that in all your sermons you instruct the people in 
the service of God, and that you announce future events, 
being moved thereto, not by human learning or wisdom, 
but by the Spirit of God. Being desirous, therefore, as is 
our duty, of conferring with you on these matters, and so 
learning God's will more clearly, w^e wish you to come to 
us as soon as possible, and we give you a command in virtue 
of holy obedience to that eifect. We shall greet you with 
all fatherly tenderness and love." 

Recalling what travel meant in those clays, and 
considering the necessary slowness and uncertainty 
of mail delivery, we can understand that there may 
have been no needless delay in Savonarola's an- 
swer, which is dated July 31st : — 

Most Holy Father, — I prostrate myself at the feet 
of your Holiness. Although I am aware that w^e must 
always obey the commands of our superiors, since we read 
in Holy Writ, " he that heareth you, heareth Me," still it is 
their meaning and not merely their words that we have to 
obey. And because I have long desired to visit Rome, and 
to worship at the shrine of the Apostles, to venerate the rel- 
ics of so many saints, and to see your Holiness, these ardent 
longings have greatly increased since I received the letter 
of your Holiness deigning to invite one so unworthy to your 



66 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

presence. Rut as there are many difficulties in the way, I 
shall humbly lay them before your Holiness, so that you 
may see the reasonableness of my excuses, and that it is 
necessity and not unwillingness which prevents me from 
obeying the command which I received, with the deepest 
love and reverence. In the first place, there is the delicate 
state of my health, the result of fever and other sickness 
which I have had of late. Then my position here, especially 
during the past year, has entailed on me such a continual 
strain of mind and body that I am exceedingly weak, ut- 
terly unable to undertake any work, or to bear the least 
fatigue. The physicians have obliged me to give up all 
study and preaching, for in their opinion and in that of 
many friends, I shall endanger my life, unless I at once sub- 
mit to proper treatment. Moreover, since Almighty God 
has made use of me to deliver this city from bloodshed and 
other serious evils, and to establish peace with respect for 
law, T have made as many enemies as there are wicked men 
in this place ; for whether they are citizens or strangers, 
they vented their rage on me when they saw their love for 
fighting, their ambition, and their greedy thoughts of rap- 
ine and plunder frustrated. At the present moment their 
plots against my life, either by open assassination or secret 
poisoning, are so frequent that I cannot leave the house 
without guards. Indeed, when I went to confer with the 
French King the loyal Florentines would not allow me to 
pass out of their protection, although I was furnished with 
a safe-conduct. Although I trust in God, I must not de- 
spise ordinary precautions, lest I should seem to tempt Him, 
since it is written, " when they persecute you in one city, 
flee into another." Moreover, the recent improvement in 
this city which God's grace has effected, is hardly suffi- 
ciently established to withstand the persistent efforts of the 
wicked, and needs daily care and attention. Since, there- 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 57 

fore, my departure at the present moment would, in the 
opinion of earnest and prudent men, cause difficulties among 
the people, and help the plots of the Medicean faction, it is 
evidently not God's will that I should leave here at present. 
I hope it will be soon. And if, perhaps, your Holiness 
wishes to know more about the misfortunes of Italy and the 
renovation of the Church, of which I have publicly spoken, 
it is all fully treated in a book which I am now having 
printed, and which, as soon as it is ready, I shall send to 
your Holiness. From it you will be able to gather all you 
wish to hear. I have said nothing that is not there. I 
have only delivered the message intrusted to me. To go 
beyond that, and to attempt to read the unknown secrets 
of God, would be sinful. I have had these things printed 
that all may know if 1 have been deceived or deceiving. 
But if things happen, as I have said, then let them thank 
our Lord and Saviour, Who by His loving care of us, shows 
that He wishes no one to perish eternally. 

And therefore, I ask your Holiness to accept these my 
excuses as most true and valid, and to believe that nothing 
could give me greater joy than to be able to carry out your 
commands. I need no other spur than my own desire to 
urge me to conquer these difficulties as soon as I can, and 
to satisfy the wishes of your Holiness to whom I commend 
myself in all humility. 

The tenor of the Pope's letter is indulgent, be- 
nign, and gentle. Villari contends that the Brief 
was issued in a spirit of deceit, to entrap Savona- 
rola, but he offers no proof. Rather are the cir- 
cumstances and the evidence against this aspersion 
of the Pope's motives. 

Savonarola's old antagonist, Mariano, was at that 



58 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

time in Rome, and Villari contends that his rabid 
and calumnious discourses had embittered Alexan- 
der. We are of the opinion that His Holiness had 
weightier cares than listening to the complaints 
and dissensions of friars. Villari also maintains 
that the AjTahhiati were plotting against Savonarola, 
and that a journey to Rome at that time, literally 
among thieves and murderers, might have been at- 
tended by assassination on the way, or by life-long 
imprisonment at the end. With this conclusion 
we cannot entirely agree. Moreover, we may not 
interpret the mind of the Pope beyond his written 
words, and they are fatherly. Politics probably 
entered into the question, but the command of the 
Pope was the supreme law for Savonarola. How- 
ever, as Alexander had set no time for his visit to 
Rome, and as commands are amenable to a reason- 
able construction when their terms are vague, the 
friar's prompt excuses expressed in the respectful 
language which we have quoted, may have been 
justified. Previously to answering the Pontiff's let- 
ter, Savonarola announced his withdrawal from the 
pulpit, on account of his illness, the shattered state 
of his health, and the exhaustion evident to all. 

To the casual reader, Savonarola's letter suggests 
a want of frankness, together with an assump- 
tion of judgment, scarcely compatible with that 
obedience which is due to a superior. On this 
point we remark that some authors deem this let- 
ter justified by Savonarola's intense conviction, not 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 59 

onl}^ from a certain conscience, the rule of morals, 
but from the heavenly light which he believed had 
been vouchsafed to him, and which he interpreted 
as imposing an imperative duty upon him. With 
this view we cannot coincide ; even admitting such 
an interpretation, it would show, on Savonarola's 
part, excessive zeal, for which there may be pallia- 
tion, but not entire justification, even under the 
extraordinarily trying circumstances attending Sa- 
vonarola's difficulty with the Pope. Still we hold 
that his spirit was of obedience, and the tacit ac- 
ceptance of his excuses by Alexander would indi- 
cate that the Pontiff did not then consider the 
friar wanting in submission. His closing discourse 
at the end of July he called a " terrible " sermon ; 
yet, as ivas his wont^ it was stamped with the spirit 
of tenderness for the people, and gentleness to- 
wards sinners, a spirit that went out even to the 
hated Jews, at a time when other ecclesiastics had 
demanded severe measures against them. Verily 
broken in health, Savonarola retired to St. Mark's, 
and Father Dominic of Pescia, his faithful disciple, 
took his place in the pulpit of the Duomo. 

Scarcely six weeks had elapsed when a second 
brief was issued by the Pope.^ Though intended 
for Savonarola and St. Mark's, this Brief was ad- 



1 Here we may remark that the complaints addressed to the 
Holy See were not by politicians alone ; churchmen of various 
grades joined in the cry against the daring preacher who had been 
go unsparing of denunciation against irregularities. Some of the 



60 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

dressed to the friars of the Holy Cross Church who 
had been opponents of the Dominicans. It re- 
ferred to the prior of St. Mark's as a " certain friar 
Jerome, a seeker after novelty and a disseminator 
of false doctrines," claiming to have a Divine mis- 
sion, but without proof of Holy Writ or miracles. 
The Brief then branched off on the subject of the 
Lombard jurisdiction (the separation from which 
Alexander himself had authorized for St. Mark's), 
branding as scandalous the position held by Savo- 
narola and the brethren of St. Mark's, several of 
whom were summarily ordered to Bologna. Sa- 
vonarola was directed to show himself subject to 
the superior of the Lombard Congregation and to 
hold himself ready for a summons by that prelate 
to whom (though a party to the previously settled 

clergy, both secular and religious, refused absolution to those of 
their penitents who attended the friar's sermons. Thus the eccle- 
siastical animosities which existed in those days were not merely 
the ebullitions of passing human temper, signs of human frailty ; 
they were, in a manner, an unfortunate outgrowth of the prevailing 
evils against which Savonarola had thundered. As Pico della 
Mirandola writes, " when the fame of his holiness grew, with it 
envy grew, and from envy came calumnies ; for as his virtues won 
for him friends, so did they raise up enemies. Amongst his most 
bitter foes were those prelates of the Church, some of them, who 
by their evil lives were giving scandal." "'He had preached 
against them," says the English Dominican, Father Procter; "he 
had spoken openly of their sins; he had said with the Baptist: 
'It is not lawful.' Like Herodias, they would be content with 
nothing but his head, — and his head they received." Concern- 
ing the Pontifical letter dated the eighth of September, it is neces- 
sary to explain certain peculiarities so that the whole may be 
placed in a proper light. 



JEROME SAVONABOLA. 61 

dispute) the affair was now referred for final 
judgment. 

We may pass over the circumstance that the 
Brief was addressed to another community, on the 
supposition that this would guarantee publicity, 
though no action or word of Savonarola or his 
brethren liad as yet given any occasion for holding 
them under the suspicion that they would suppress 
the Brief. The reference to a " certain friar Je- 
rome," in the face of Alexander's previous personal 
letter to him, is puzzling; it may have been the 
work of one of the Pope's secretaries. The charge 
of false doctrine was subsequently stamped as false, 
even in Alexander's day, and more emphatically, 
by one of his successors. The sudden interjection 
of a question of jurisdiction between two provinces 
of the Order, a matter which Alexander himself 
had decided, and to which in his former letter he 
made no reference, suggests to Villari a religious 
pretext for picking a political quarrel ; but the 
inference is not clear. Savonarola was in a sore 
dilemma. On either horn he might be impaled. 
That he was grievously troubled and yet seem- 
ingly unshaken in the sense of religious duty, we 
gather from a letter addressed by him to one of 
the Dominicans in Rome:^ ''AH the world knows 
that the charges against me are false. My accu- 

1 Savonarola's expressions, " all the world," " no cause for at- 
tack," "all wish to rid themselves," etc., must he taken in a 
rhetorical sense. 



62 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

sers have no cause for attack ; rather they stone me 
for a good deed. But I neither dread them nor 
fear their power, for I rely on the grace of God 
and an upright conscience. I know who are the 
real authors of these troubles. They are wicked 
citizens who desire to raise themselves to power, 
and their accomplices are wicked princes of Italy. 
They all wish to rid themselves of my piesence 
here, at any cost, since they consider me an obsta- 
cle to their ambition. In fact, I dare not leave the 
convent without an escort. If His Holiness knew 
all, I do not think that he would wish me to go to 
Rome. I will obey, however, even thougli my obe- 
dience should bring about the ruin of the world, 
for I would not sin, even venially, in this affair." 
Comment on these sentiments would be superflu- 
ous. In his answer to the Pope, sent towards the 
end of the same month, he respectfuU}^ defended 
his doctrines, denied that he had ever claimed ab- 
solutely to be a prophet, reminded Alexander how 
the separation of St. Mark's from the Lombard ju- 
risdiction had been effected, on the appeal of the 
entire communit}^ submitted all his writings to the 
judgment of the Holy See, and declared his prompt 
readiness to accept the correction and guidance of 
the Church. To this letter Alexander replied on 
the sixteenth of October, though Savonarola did 
not receive the papal Brief for several wrecks. In 
this communication Alexander praised the obedi- 
ence of Savonarola, admitted his good intentions, 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 63 

but commanded him to desist from father preach- 
ing till he would be able, with honor and safety, to 
make the journey to Rome. 

Savonarola complied with this injunction against 
his preaching, Father Dominic taking his place in 
the Cathedral, during the succeeding Advent. 



64 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



XIII. 

REFORMATION OF THE CHILDREN OF FLORENCE. 

{1495-1496.) 

The closing days of 1495 found Savonarola in 
retirement, but active with liis pen. Though en- 
feebled in health, his mind had lost none of its 
clearness, nor Avas his high spirit daunted. 

Sharing the opinion held by many of the car- 
dinals, as well as by a large number of bishops, 
priests, and laymen, who were zealous for the 
honor of religion, Savonarola longed for the as- 
sembling of a Council. lie wrote to Charles of 
France, and urged this hesitating monarch to take 
steps towards the desired end. He also engaged 
in other correspondence, but always .bearing on the 
spiritual life. 

The time for the Carnival of 1496 was approach- 
ing, and it was evident that the Arrahhiati were 
determined to restore the abominable features 
which had prevailed in the Medicean daj^s. Sa- 
vonarola resolved to prevent this, thougli he knew 
full well the disposition of the people, and the 
readiness with which they could be swayed back 
to the sins they had abandoned. Their conversion 
was not lasting ; rather had a passing emotion mo- 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. Qb 

mentarily changed tlieni. Knowing this, he would 
not have been surprised by any outburst of wicked- 
ness among those who had been swayed only by 
that wonderful voice, now no longer ringing out 
the threats of Divine Justice, or gently urging the 
pleadings of Divine mercy. 

He began his campaign with the boys. He in- 
augurated the " reform of the children." In this 
work Ave find a most interesting phase of Savo- 
narola's mission. For generations the Florentines 
had been accustomed to revelry and even debauch- 
ery (especially under the Medici) during Carnival 
holidays. The boys took part in the celebration 
in a way characteristic of youthful heedlessness 
and even of cruelty. A game they played at this 
time was known as that of the stones, a brutal and 
occasionally a fatal '' pastime " wdiich closed the 
day's festivities. After having secured means for 
a supper by intercepting the people on the street, 
whose passage they would not allow except on the 
payment of mone}^ the evening was spent around 
a huge "bonfire." At this time they found enter- 
tainment in pelting one another wdth stones. 
Against these disorderly customs, warnings, threats, 
penalties, had proved ineffective. 

The great preacher, silenced, deprived of the 
privilege of exercising his marvellous God-given 
power in the pulpit, took to heart the case of the 
children whose improvement was not beneath the 
efforts of the man who had politically and morally 



6Q JEliOME SAVONAROLA. 

reformed their elders. And liis success was pro- 
nounced. Catering to the military and political 
instinct that is quick in the heart of every " real " 
boy, Savonarola marshalled the Florentine youth 
(tlie same wild, lovable fellows in the fifteenth cen- 
tury that we find in the nineteenth), according to 
the '' quarters " of the city, and had them elect 
their own captains, with counsellors for the cap- 
tains. Thus organized, he exhorted them to make 
a new carnival. For the shameful songs that they 
had sung, would they not sing the new songs? 
He himself would write them, and fitting music 
would also be provided. We seem to hear the 
honest-hearted boys, who felt that the great prior 
Avas their true friend, as they promised to sing his 
hymns. And the worn preacher kindled again the 
poetic fires of other days, and forgetting the tri- 
umphs of the Duomo, burying in his own great 
heart his sorrows and his wrongs, wrote for the 
lads sweet hymns and pure songs whose sacred 
melody would rise to Heaven in reparation for the 
shameful ballads of Medicean days. 

He allowed the boj^s to beg, but not offensively, 
not to the intercepting of any passer-by. From 
liouse to house they went ; and when at night they 
had gathered a rich liarvest, and it was turned over 
to tlie " Good Men of St. Martin " for the modest 
and deserving poor, beyond doubt the generous and 
tender-hearted prior made ample provision for a big 
supper for liis Florentine boys. 



JEROME SAVONABOLA. 6Y 

Here we may anticipate, to mention Savonarola's 
special solicitude for the children during the Lent 
of 1496, when he also arranged a novel and most 
interesting procession on Palm Sunday. His suc- 
cess with the boys during the Carnival assured his 
further success in the Palm Sunday celebration. 
The Monte di Pietd, to which we have already re- 
ferred, had been for some time in operation. De- 
sirous of assisting still further in this meritorious 
work, he instituted a procession of the children, 
who visited all the churches, sang hymns, collected 
alms, and, at the close, made a handsome offering 
to the pious work. "• And so much joy was there 
in all hearts" says Burlamacchi, "that the glory 
of Paradise seemed to have descended on earth, 
and many tears of tenderness and devotion were 
shed." Who can wonder that under the impulse 
of these extraordinary changes, the Florentines 
cried out "Live Jesus Christ, our King!" 



68 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



XIV. 

A NEW CO U USE OF SERMONS AWAKENS PAPAL DIS- 
PLEASURE. 

We must return to the early winter of 1496, 
when the choice of a Lenten preacher was up- 
permost in the minds of Savonaroha's friends. 
Through their persistent efforts they succeeded 
in securing permission from Pope Alexander that 
he might resume his sermons. He was immedi- 
ately chosen to speak in the Duomo during the 
entire Lent.^ 

1 An event of uncertain date is ascribed to this time. Alexan- 
der commissioned a Dominican bishop, whose name is not recorded, 
to examine the published sermons of Savonarola. This prelate 
reported to His Holiness that not only were there no theological 
flaws in the friar's writings, but that on the contrary his teaching 
was wise and just. The suggestion was also made by this bishop 
that it would be prudent for the Pope to win the friendship of 
Savonarola by offering to him a cardinal's hat. Here again exact 
dates are wanting; but the fact seems established that Alexander 
did approach the friar, through another Dominican, who had been 
authorized to communicate the Pope's intention of enrolling him 
among the members of the Sacred College. 

This, we may believe, was intended as a reward for the virtues 
and services of the great preacher, generously recognized by the 
Pontiff. Alexander's enemies among the advocates for Savonarola 
can see in this offer only an attempt to withdraw him from Flor- 
ence, thus effectively closing his sermons. According to these 
writers Savonarola took the matter in the sense of bartering, and 




STATUE OF SAVONAROLA, BY E. PAZZI, 
In tlie Palazzo Veccliio, Florence. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 69 

The holy season opened with the Cathedral 
thronged, special provision having been made to ac- 
commodate the mnltitude eager to hear the restored 
preacher. Guarded by his friends, Savonarola 
proceeded to the church. Even then his life was 
in danger, for the Arrabhiati were determined to 
assassinate him. 

Mounting the pulpit, lie yielded to the inspira- 
tion of the scene. Clearly, solemnly, tenderly, he 
proclaimed his Catholic Faith, and his unswerving 
loyalty to the Holy See, with whose permission he 
had resumed his preaching. The discourse was a 
splendid effort, a demonstration, if one were needed, 
that Savonarola was an orator of marvellous power. 

He defended his attitude towards the summons 
to Rome ; he defied his enemies ; he lashed the 
vices and crimes that were stalking abroad in the 
land ; he denounced superstition ; he pointed out 
the dangers of mere ceremonies and external obser- 
vances when faith was dead ; he pleaded for a re- 
newal of the spiritual life, for perseverance by those 
who had already entered on the penitential way. 

Thus lie continued during Lent. Some of his 
utterances as to coming plagues and the ruin and 

as such, repudiated it. They cite in support of their opinion his 
blunt answer to tlie Pope's messenger: "Come to my next ser- 
mon and you will receive my answer to Rome; " and his public 
declaration, often repeated in other discourses, "I desire neither 
hats nor mitres ; 1 desire only what the saints received ; I desire 
only death, yea, a rod hat, a hat crimson with my blood." 

Possibly a simple solution and a more truthful one may be 
found m Savonarola's humility. 



70 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

desecration of clmrches were afterwards fulfilled. 
His courage was admirable, but his enemies were 
increasing. Too many had felt the sting of his 
lash ; too many saw themselves in a hideous re- 
flection as he held before Florence the mirror 
of the Christian life. Moreover, his strained re- 
lations with the Pope stripped him somewhat of 
the old-time power, wdiile his distinctions as to 
a collision between conscience and a superior's 
command, bred among his hearers suspicions and 
evil tlioughts. 

Though he manifested in the discourses which 
bore on politics, and which were dictated by mo- 
tives of patriotism, a lofty freedom from party 
spirit, this did not save him from the growing 
auger of the opponents of the new government, 
who were resolved on vengeance against him. 

Contentions arose, in consequence, among the 
partisans and factions dividing the city. Letters, 
ballads, pamphlets in high praise of the friar, in 
equally strong denunciation, multiplied, and were 
spread among the people ; learned and ignorant, 
cleric and layman, taking part in the battle of words. 

The element of politics was the chief considera- 
tion with the great body of the Florentines. Even 
among many of Savonarola's followers the bond 
was mainly political. Tliat they supported the 
friar as against the Pope, was not from religious 
sympatliy or from a clear, conscientious under- 
standing of the quarrel ; tliey saw in Alexander 



JEROME SAVONAROLA, 71 

a temporal ruler who wished to injure the Repub- 
lic, by restoring the Medici, as a preliminary step 
to other political and selfish ends. Therefore, 
they upheld the friar. This fact must be clearly 
kept in view, at this critical juncture in Savona- 
rola's affairs. 

Remembering that the Pope's permission for the 
resumption of his sermons had been merely verbal, 
and considering that it had been granted in the 
hope that the preacher would modify his tone, we 
may readily believe that as the Lent advanced, 
and as reports of Savonarola's discourses reached 
Alexander, his indignation was warranted. He ex- 
pressed in vigorous language the displeasure he 
felt ; and complained of the Florentine Signory's 
upholding of Savonarola, and of their refusal to join 
the League of Italian States. Always politics ! So 
entangled with this ever recurring question of pol- 
itics is the career of Savonarola that contradictions 
may well be admitted as almost necessary, in the 
judgments passed by history on Pope and friar, and 
on the motives actuating their relations. 

In the meantime, Alexander had called a confer- 
ence of fourteen Dominican theologians to whom 
he submitted the case of Savonarola. Nothing 
came of it. Chief among the charges alleged was 
one imputing to Savonarola all the misfortunes of 
Piero de' Medici. Assuredly here we have a new 
proof that politics and not religion dominated the 
situation ! 



72 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



XV. 



missio:nary and literary labors during 1496. — re- 
newed CONTENTION WITH THE POPE. 

After Easter, 1496, Savonarola proceeded to 
Prato, in which city the Dominican Convent, as 
we have ah-eady mentioned, had been placed under 
his jurisdiction. His stay in Prato was short, but 
his preaching bore abundant fruit. 

In May he resumed his labors in Florence. He 
preached chiefly on Sunda3^s, and published two 
volumes, — one on the simplicity of the Christian 
life, in which he j^i'esented Catholic truths in a 
style so easy that all who ran might read ; the 
other volume contained an exposition of the sev- 
enty-ninth Psalm: '* Give ear, O Thou that rulest 
Israel ; Thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep." 

From May until late in August he continued at 
intervals his impassioned sermons in which warn- 
ings and menaces of future retribution were re- 
peated often. He Avas entirely divested of all 
human fear. On Aug. 20th, he preached in the 
Hall of the Grand Council ; and there, before the 
Signory, the other officials, and the leading men of 
Florence, he defended himself against the slurs of 
the enemies who had impugned his motives, and 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 73 

who, by dishonestly charging him with undue in- 
terference in public affairs, had slandered him. 

At this time, the Republic being in sore straits,^ 
the powerful influence of Savonarola was eagerly 
sought by the authorities ; and, despite the ingrati- 
tude which he had already experienced, he gener- 
ously devoted his time to the strengthening of the 
government among the people. With rare pru- 
dence he avoided giving the Pontiff any further 
occasion for irritation. In fact, during two months 
and more he abstained from preaching ; it was late 
in October when he again ascended the pulpit. 

Great misery prevailed in the city, and the un- 
fortunate people turned to the prior in the hope 
of some relief. He encouraged them, comforted 
them, and to win special favor from Heaven, he 
organized a grand procession in honor of the Blessed 
Virgin. The image of the Madonna dell' Impru- 
neta having been brought into the city, the Floren- 
tines, who specially venerated, our Lady under 
this title, manifested an extraordinary devotion.^ 

While the procession was in progress, news came 
that much needed supplies were at hand. Consid- 
ering this as a sign of heavenly favor, the fickle 

1 The war against Pisa was still under way; famine had 
stricken parts of Tuscany; pestilence also prevailed. 

2 Near the celebrated Certosa, about twelve miles from Flor- 
ence, lies the village of Impruneta. There, in the church of the 
Madonna dell' Impruneta, is enshrined a miraculous painting of 
our Lady, attributed to St. Luke. Among the Tuscans, this 
shrine is still highly venerated. 



74 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

multitude again hailed Savonarola as their deliv- 
erer. On All Saints' and All Souls' Savonarola 
again preached. 

Five days later the Pope issued another Brief, 
in which he took a stand entirely different from 
that of his previous order, regarding the union 
of the Tuscan and the Lombard provinces of the 
Order. 

By this latest letter he commanded the Floren- 
tine and Tuscan Dominicans to unite in one prov- 
ince with those of the Roman congregation, under 
a vicar who would be immediately subject to the 
Master General of the Order. In answer to this 
Brief, Savonarola published an apolog}^ in which 
he contended that the Pope had been misinformed, 
and that to carry out his command would be to 
the detriment of religion. Frankly, we can offer 
no excuse for Savonarola's action in this crisis. 
Forgetting his previous declaration that he would 
obey, though the ruin of the world followed, he 
refused to carry out the injunctions of Alexander. 
And yet the command of the Pope was not only 
within his right, waiving all question of motive,^ 
but it was his further right, had he so desired, to 
suppress the province over Avhich Savonarola ruled, 
or the entire Order of which he was a member. 

Had the prior of St. Mark's obeyed, yielding up 

1 Villari sees in the changed policy of Alexander only the 
dominating influence of politics. Our comment is : What about 
Savonarola's variations ? 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 75 

liis authority and becoming subject to the new 
jurisdiction, he might have been transferred from 
Florence (where he believed his presence neces- 
sary), he might have been silenced, he might have 
been persecuted, but worse could not have befallen 
him than awaited him in ungrateful Florence, nor 
would he have lost the victory which is ever prom- 
ised to the obedient man. 

The twenty -sixth of November found him again 
in the pulpit; he continued to preach during Ad- 
vent, giving a marked political character to his 
discourses, and sounding a note of defiance that 
meant "no retreat, no surrender." This alone 
would have placed him in a false position. A 
semblance of power he held ; but the plots, forge- 
ries, and slanders of his enemies, together with his 
own defiance of the Pope, were already paving the 
way for the end of his seeming triumph. When 
the year 1496 closed, his position was one of great 
peril. 



76 JEROME SAVONABOLA. 



XVI. 

PLOTS OF THE FR TAR'S ENEMIES.— THE BURXIXG OF 
THE " VAXITIESr {1497.) 

As the Lent of 1497 drew near, the Arrabhiati^ 
and especially the younger portion of them, many 
of whom had banded together and were known as 
the Compagnacci^^ determined to cast off the re- 
straints which Savonarola's reform had put upon 
their amusements. It is apparent that the prior 
had not sufficiently consulted the reasonable weak- 
nesses of human nature, and so his advice and rules 
concerning entertainmeuts bore the stamp of exces- 
sive severity. Against these, the " bad fellows " 
not only rebelled, but they also resolved to go to 
the other extreme, reviving the shameful practices 
that had been in vogue during the Medicean rule. 

Savonarola was on the alert, and was ably sec- 
onded by his devoted disciple. Father Dominic, 
who preached daily, while the prior occupied him- 
self in the composition and publication of various 
pamphlets, and in the final draft of his book on 
" The Triumph of the Cross." The Arrahhiati and 
the Compagnacci were defeated, and by a peculiar 
device as we shall now see. 

1 The bad fellows. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 77 

Once more Savonarola Avon the children, who 
paraded the city for several days before the Carni- 
val, making a novel collection from the people 
already disposed, through the sermons of Savona- 
rola and Father Dominic, to surrender vain and 
sinful objects. A large quantity of miscellaneous 
articles was secured. Preparations had been made 
in the Piazza, where an enormous pyramid had 
been erected, sixty feet in height, divided, as Bur- 
lamacchi relates, into fifteen tiers, or as another 
contemporary reports, into seven, symbolizing the 
seven deadly sins. The interior of the pyramid 
was filled with inflammable material. We follow 
Burlamacchi as to the disposition of the articles 
which had been collected by the children : " On 
the first step were laid the foreign tapestries on 
which obscene figures had been wrought; on the 
second were pictures of Florentine damsels, and 
other representations ; on the next were cards, dice, 
gambling implements ; on the fourth were musical 
instruments ; then came women's adornments — 
false hair, perfumes, lotions, powders, etc. ; after 
these were placed copies of the profane poets and 
some of the modern writers, Boccaccio and others ; 
finally a great quantity of Carnival finery — masks, 
costumes, etc. Surmounting all was a figure of 
King Carnival." 

The news had spread rapidly, and the curiosity 
and excitement of the Florentines were aroused to 
a high pitch. In great numbers the people assem- 



78 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

bled, after the religious exercises of the morning — 
Mass, Communion by all the children, and a grand 
procession, during which a generous collection in 
money was made for the " Good Men of St. Mar- 
tin." Suddenly, at four points the pile was fired, 
and, while the air was filled with the sweet song of 
the children, the huge pyramid was consumed. 

Probably no event in Savonarola's career has ex- 
cited more bitter condemnation than this " burning 
of the vanities." ^ Exaggeration, botli by friends 
and opponents, has so exalted the value and the 
nature of the stuff destroyed, that it is difficult 
to arrive at a certain conclusion. The alleged 
offer, by a Venetian who was present, of twenty 
thousand crowns for the articles on the pyramid, 
had something to do with the erroneous notions 
prevailing as to the quality of the "vanities." In 
consequence, Savonarola has been denounced as a 
barbarous hater of the arts, an iconoclast, a gloomy 
fanatic opposed to all innocent enjoyment. The 
old complaint of Judas — why were not these 
things sold and their price given to the poor? — 
has also been brought against the friar. 

These objections have been satisfactorily met. 
At a time famous for its scholars, many of wliom 
witnessed this burning under the direction of a man 
who was himself a poet, whose convent was a sanc- 
tuary of art, whose most devoted friends were the 

1 A early as 1425 the great Franciscan missionary, St. Ber- 
nardine of Siena, made a similar " bonfire " ' of vanities in Perugia. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 79 

painters and sculptors of the da}^ it is not likely 
that any really precious article was destroyed. In 
burning obscenely illustrated volumes, some rare 
editions may have been destroyed ; among the 
paintings, there may have been some inferior works 
of eminent artists ; but the great bulk of the " van- 
itie3 " was composed of masks, wigs, beards, toilet 
articles, etc., cheap stuff whose sale would have 
brought little for the poor, of whom Savonarola 
had always taken good care. 

In proof of his positive statement that art had 
not suffered by this burning, and as a testimony 
to the noble and generous spirit of the scholarly 
prior of St. Mark's, Villari refers to the purchase 
by Savonarola of the Medicean library, under cir- 
cumstances of peculiar honor to the friar and his 
brethren, who stripped themselves of many of their 
possessions, and burdened themselves with debt to 
keep intact this splendid collection, and to preserve 
it for Florence. At the same time Savonarola was, 
in this special instance, the financial mainstay of 
the Government, which was passing through a 
period of great stringency. 

"Here then," writes Villari, "is historical proof 
that the supposed enemy of the ancients, the bar- 
barous destroyer of manuscripts and works of art, 
not only devoted the last remnant of his Convent's 
property, but likewise burdened the community 
with a very heavy debt, in order to preserve to art 
and science the marvellous collection of Greek and 



80 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

Latin codices, and the unrivalled treasure of mini- 
atures still contained in the Laurentian Library." 

Anticipating, as we may, we shall here refer to 
the second burning which took place in 1498. It 
differed but little from the burning of the previous 
year, though the preliminary procession and the 
begging of alms for the "Good men of St. Martin" 
were interrupted by the Oompag^iacci, who insulted 
the ^'' Piagnoii^'' and in various offensive and inju- 
rious waj^s proved their right to their ugly title. 

Speaking of this burning, Villari quotes Nardi, 
a lover of antiquity, a scholar and historian who 
declares that "many dishonest, indecent, and vain 
things were burned ; " and Somenzi, an enemy of 
Savonarola, who wrote that the pile consisted '' of 
a great quantity of lustful things, mirrors, women's 
false hair, masks, paintings, quantities of perfumes, 
and every species of lustful things." " Is it likely," 
asks Villari, " that if really valuable objects of art 
had been included in the collection, the learned 
Nardi, and Somenzi, the bitter enemy of Savona- 
rola, would have failed to mention the fact ? " 



JEROME SAVONAIIOLA. 81 



XVII. 

ALEXANDER VI. EXCOMMUNICATES SAVONAROLA. 

The Lent of 1497 practically closed the effective 
preaching of Savonarola. Though his difficulty 
with Alexander VI. was approaching an acute 
stage, and though he continued to denounce abuses, 
he made it clear to all that he questioned no dog- 
ma of the Church, that he not only recognized the 
supreme spiritual dominion of Rome, but also that 
he was a loyal upholder of the temporal sover- 
eignty of the Holy See. Expecting, as it would 
seem, the excommunication which later fell on him, 
he showed a spirit of strange courage or defiance. 
Again he referred to his violent death, as he fore- 
saw it, and cheerfully offered his life as a sacrifice. 

Political questions in which Alexander was 
deeply concerned, still held a place in the dispute. 
To the Florentines he made overtures regarding 
Pisa whicli were not accepted. For this he re- 
buked their ambassador, affirming that the Repub- 
lic resisted him because of their faith in the friar 
who, as he declared, had insulted the Holy See. 
In Rome intrigues were incessant among Piero de' 
Medici's adherents, one of whose most devoted 



82 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

followers was the friar Mariano, who had been 
humiliated in Florence, and who had transferred 
his residence to Rome, where he kept up his spite- 
ful opposition to Savonarola. 

In Florence plots were hatched, and desperate 
efforts were made to arouse a sentiment in favor 
of the return of Piero, who was planning to enter 
the city by force. He failed ignominiously. Sa- 
vonarola had predicted his humiliating retreat. 
The Compagnacci were foremost among those who 
sought the downfall of the prior as a preliminary 
to the downfall of the' Republic. They had re- 
solved on his assassination. They resoi'ted to the 
most disgraceful and cowardly tactics to harass 
him. They profaned the Duomo in a shameful and 
filthy manner. His Ascension Day sermon they 
sacrilegiously interrupted ; they tried to precipitate 
a riot, and while he fearlessly stood in the pulpit, 
vainly endeavoring to make himself heard above 
the noise, the wretches attempted to kill liim. 

It seems almost incredible that Alexander could 
have sanctioned such an outrage, yet the charge is 
made against him, without the offer of any proof 
except that of another unproved charge that he 
had been withholding a Brief of excommunication, 
awaiting the result of Piero's expedition, and of 
the plot against Savonarola. 

Nine days after the Ascension sermon the ex- 
communication was launched.^ The document, 

1 Excommunication is a punishment inflicted by the Church 



JEliOME SAVONAROLA. 83 

however, had not reached Florence on the 22d, 
nor was it then known, except by way of forebod- 
ing, when Savonarola addressed to Alexander a 
conciliatory letter, appealing against his enemies, 
and referring to his forthcoming work, " The Tri- 
umph of the Cross," for a justification of his teach- 
ings. His effort was unavailing.^ By the end of 
the month this document had arrived in Florence, 
ambiguous in its terms, irregular in form, served 
in an unusual manner. On two points, however, 
there can be no dispute. Alexander charged Sa- 
vonarola with disobedience in the affair of the 
Tuscan Congregation already related ; but he did 
not charge him with heresy. Repeating the former 
style of reference to "a certain friar, Jerome, said 
to be Vicar," etc., Alexander declared that from 
reports the said friar was suspected of heresy. 
This, however, availed little. A terrible blow fell 
on Savonarola when, by mid-June, the papal edict 
had been solemnly promulgated, to be followed by 
all the attending misfortunes awaiting one with 
whom no Christian could hold communion. The 
effect of such a measure cannot be estimated by 
those unfamiliar with the dreadful consequences 
involved in the infliction of these penalties of last 

when, in the exercise of her supreme power, she severs an indi- 
vidual from her Communion. See "A Catholic Dictionary" for 
fuller explanation. 

1 We find no proof for Villari's statement that Alexander, on 
receiving this letter, expressed regret for the publication of his 
Brief at that time. For text of Savonarola's letter, see Appendix I. 



84 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

ecclesiastical resort. Savonarola bowed before the 
storm ; kept within his cloister ; but in a declara- 
tion to "all Christians in the love of God," he 
defended himself, and denied the justice and the 
validity of the excommunication. 

In the meantime the Compagnacci had asserted 
themselves, and Florence, true to the lowest in- 
stinct of ungrateful humanity, resumed its course 
of evil as in the worst days from which Savonarola 
had rescued it. Within a month the city was the 
scene of every manner of disorder, — the vile rabble 
even going the length of stoning the Convent of 
St. Mark's. For this offence they were not pun- 
ished by the Signory then in power, which con- 
tained a majority opposed to Savonarola. 

During July and August, however, a new elec- 
tion brought the prior's friends to the front, and 
then began a series of most earnest efforts on the 
part of the Signory, of the Florentine ambassador 
at Rome, and of influential followers of Savonarola, 
to secure the repeal of the Brief of excommunica- 
tion.^ 

1 A grave and scandalous incident which Father Marchese 
mentions occurred about this time. It was intimated very clearly 
to Savonarola that the payment of a debt of five thousand crowns 
to the creditor of a certain cardinal would be followed by the 
raising of the ban. Needless to say, Savonarola indignantly 
spurned the offer. In the midst of these trying events Alexan- 
der's son, the Duke of Gandia, had been assassinated. Savonarola 
wrote to the Pope offering him consolation, and urging him to 
persevere in the newness of life on which, through grief for his 
son's untimely death, he was said to have entered. Alasl it Avas 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 85 

Tlie brethren of St. Mark's, and hundreds of the 
leading citizens of Florence, signed petitions beg- 
ging absolution for Savonarola, and bearing tes- 
timony to the holiness of his life and doctrine. It 
was all in vain. His enemies were powerful, and 
their activity was unceasing. 

As July advanced, the plague, which had broken 
out, spread rapidly, tliough it spent its force be- 
fore the end of August. While it continued, Sa- 
vonarola, though unable to minister spiritually to 
the afflicted because of his excommunication, was 
unsparing in his efforts to succor them through ma- 
terial aid, counsel, encouragement, letters of guid- 
ance, and pamphlets of practical instruction, and 
by the example of his own unfaltering fortitude. 

only a temporary change, followed by renewed anger against the 
prior for " insulting his fatherly sorrow." The reader is reminded 
that Alexander had been married before entering the priesthood. 



86 JER OME . SA VONAROLA. 



XVIII. 

A CALUMNY ANSWERED.— DISOBEDIENCE OF THE FRIAR. 
— THE POPE THREATENS AN INTERDICT. 

The cessation of the pestilence, and the conse- 
quent resumption of the usual course of affairs, 
afforded the government an opportunity to take up 
the case of those who had been suspected of com- 
plicity in the recent attempt of Piero de' Medici 
to regain his hold on the Republic. As the re- 
sult of an exciting trial, five distinguished citizens 
were sentenced to death. 

In the matter of this conspiracy and trial Sa- 
vonarola has been grievously calumniated. As Vil- 
lari pointedly remarks, '' Neither in the histories, 
memoirs, correspondence, or biographies, of the pe- 
riod do we find a single word to indicate whether 
Savonarola was favorable or unfavorable to the 
accused." His own declaration is in evidence that 
he had deprecated the death penalty for the leader, 
and that he had recommended another to the con- 
sideration of friends. Nevertheless, he has been 
represented as denying to the condemned the right 
of appeal, as if the administration of law and judi- 
cial decisions rested with him.^ 

1 Savonarola is numbered among the legislators of Florence; 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 87 

In this charge there are two errors. The guilt 
of the conspirators having been conclusively proved, 
after an exhaustive and protracted trial with which 
Savonarola had no connection whatever, he could 
not have saved them, on an appeal, even had he 
made the attempt ; because patriotic passion was 
running too high to suffer any check, even from 
the. friar. The further assertion that the law of 
appeal denied to the condemned Avas of his making 
is one of those half truths which are often worse 
than whole lies. Savonarola, as we have narrated 
in its proper place, had striven to secure the estab- 
lishment of a court of appeal, not the final reference 
of judicial cases to a mob. 

The autumn of 1497 was passing, and Savonarola, 
silent and withdrawn from the public eye, labored 
with extraordinary diligence in the composition 
and publication of various spiritual works, letters, 
tracts, pamphlets, for religious and for the laity. 
Toiling tirelessly, he published a small library of 
these treatises in an incredibly short time. He 
also .finished his great book, " The Triumph of the 
Cross, "^ which, though based on St. Thomas Aqui- 
nas's Summa Contra Gentiles., is one of the earliest 

but he never interfered in the administration of affairs, beyond 
the share he had in establishing the government after the expul- 
sion of Piero de' Medici. 

1 This work has been done into English by a Protestant writer, 
O'Dell T. Hill, who showed not only bad taste and bigotry, but also 
took an unwarranted liberty with the author's teaching, by omit- 
ting his strong, clear, Catholic assertion of the Pope's rights and 
powers. 



88 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

attempts made by a theologian to treat religion from 
the view-point of reason. In this work he proved 
that he was a deep thinker ; he manifested great 
courage in disregarding the beaten paths of his day, 
while his fidelity to the Angelic Doctor, his vast 
learning, and his undoubted orthodoxy, make the 
volume his Catholic monument.^ Beginning with 
the existence of God and the necessity of religion, 
he proceeds to the Christian revelation, passes to 
its doctrines and sacraments, and concludes with a 
refutation of opposing and contradictory creeds. 

Had men seriously doubted the great preacher's 
loyal Catholicity, this volume (a pioneer of a new 
school of spiritual literature), in matter most solid 
and excellent, in style most original, would have 
been an explicit and a satisfactory answer. Neither 
heretic nor schismatic was Savonarola ; no more 
devoted son of the Roman See ever labored for 
God and souls, despite his unhappy collision with 
Alexander the Sixth. 

All other efforts at reconciliation having failed, 
the Republic having exhausted all its influence, 
Pico della Mirandola published an apology for the 
friar, in which he showed much learning ; but he 
failed to touch the main point, — the duty of obedi- 

1 Savonarola's devotion to St. Thomas Aquinas is also mani- 
fested in his work treating of the government of Florence. In 
this he adheres to the principles of his master, as taught in the 
" De Regimine Principum." Symonds considers this treatise of 
Savonarola to he the " most thorough-going analysis of despotic 
criminality." 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 89 

ence to a command, even though the most unworthy 
motives animate the superior. 

History, as usually written, may not absolve 
Alexander from the gratuitous charge of harboring 
sentiments of personal animosity against Savona- 
rola ; nor is it likely to free him from another 
charge of having used the spiritual weapons of the 
Church in an affair from which politics could not 
be separated. The domain of motive and con- 
science is here entered without sufficient external 
light to guide the inquirer ; judgment, therefore, 
shoukl at least be suspended. Is it not also evi- 
dent that an impartial judgment must deplore the 
error of Savonarola, who allowed himself to take 
a false stand through excessive zeal?^ 

In celebrating Mass on Cliristmas, 1497, and in 
preaching on Septuagesima Sunday, 1498, while 
under the ban of excommunication, Savonarola 
probably acted on the dictates of a conscience 
which may have grown certain in the conviction 
that his excommunication was unjust and invalid. 
Nevertheless, we deplore this step as a " blunder 
worse than a crime." It proved to be "the begin- 
ning of the end." 

He pleaded his cause ably ; but the tide had set 
strongly against him, and was flowing fast. Three 
times subsequently he spoke before the end of the 
Carnival, which he closed with the second burning 
of the vanities. It was on this day that, holding 
aloft the Blessed Sacrament, he solemnly called 



90 JEROME .SAVONAROLA. 

God to destroy him if he had ever spoken falsely 
to the people.^ 

The report of these happenings was c^vrried to 
Rome, where powerful enemies were engaged in a 
final effort to overcome the friar. Alexander's 
anger was natural, for seldom had a Pope been de- 
fied in such manner. He was also incensed against 
the Republic for its advocacy and support of the 
daring friar. The contention was further inflamed 
by Father Mariano, who preached a violent and 
opprobrious sermon against Savonarola, though his 
evident malice and gross buffoonery won for him 
only increased contempt and reprobation. From 
this, liowever, he derived fresh zeal in his malig- 
nant pursuit of a man who had never injured him. 

On February 26th Alexander wrote to the Sig- 
nory, and commanded them to stop Savonarola's 
preaching, and either to send him to Rome, or to 
imprison him in Florence. The Brief closed with 
the threat of an interdict on the city. But the 
Signory were not moved. The canons of the ca- 
thedral, however, had also received a command to 
prevent the friar from speaking in the Duomo. 
Accordingly he withdrew to St. Mark's, where his 
audience was so great that a special day was set 
for the exclusive attendance of women. 



^ A celebrated writer, referring to this extraordinary prayer, 
introduces tiie gentle fall of a sunbeam on the upturned, radiant 
face of the friar, which the people took as a heavenly sign. His 
contemporaries mention no such occurrence. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 91 

The election for March and April returned a ma- 
jority of the Signory opposed to Savonarola. It is 
puzzling, therefore, to find these men writing to 
Alexander in behalf of the prior. Villari inclines 
to the opinion that their purpose was still further 
to vex and irritate the Pope. Savonarola contin- 
ued his sermons on the reformation of the Church, 
and on the need of a Council. 

Reading these discourses after four hundred 
years, it must be admitted that Alexander showed 
considerable patience. Some writers call this pa- 
tience, cunning and duplicity. But even were it 
so, the condition of affairs had now come to such 
a pass that the end was only a question of a short 
time. Repeatedly the Pope warned the Florentine 
government that he would brook no further delay. 
He had grown tired of words; he demanded deeds. 
And not until these deeds were accomplished 
would he consider favorably the Republic's re- 
quest regarding Pisa and the proposed taxation 
of church property. He denied that he had been 
misinformed ; he admitted the good works and 
the correct teaching of Savonarola ; but he also 
insisted on his submission and obedience. On 
receiving these he would absolve him, and allow 
him to resume his place in the pulpit. Otherwise 
he would at once interdict the city.^ 

1 An interdict is an ecclesiastical censure by wliich persons 
are debarred from the use of certain sacraments, from all the 
divine ofljces, and from Christian burial. The infliciion of such 



92 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

During this time — the month of March — Piero 
de' Medici was active in Rome, securing co-opera- 
tion for tlie decisive moment when he should again 
attempt to regain control in Florence. Tlie other 
enemies of Savonarola were incessant in their plot- 
ting, while the Venetians and the Milanese, en- 
couraged by Alexander, were seeking, if possible, 
to force the Florentines into their league. Politics 
dominated and confused the minds of the friends 
and foes of the friar. Many of his friends grew 
timid, especially when the threatened interdict was 
held over their heads. Connnercial and financial 
considerations also had great weight, for an inter- 
dict meant the business ruin of a city while it con- 
tinued in force. It was not, therefore, religion or 
loyalty to the Pope, but selfish, material interests 
that vi^on to Alexander's side a majority of the 
government, now ready to sacrifice the friar who 
had done so much and so generously for the city 
which was about to abandon him. 

On March 15th Savonarola, as if urged to make 
a last appeal directly to the Pope, w^rote to Alex- 
ander a letter full of affection and courage. Fear- 
ing, he said, that no hope could be entertained of 
a revocation of the decree of excommunication, he 

a penalty, like every war measure, involved the innocent as well 
as the guilty. Tlie Church has rarely used this punishment, 
thou}i;h history records instances of its exercise aj^ainst cities, 
churches, and individuals. The reader will find a plain state- 
ment of the nature and effects of interdicts in "A Catholic 
Dictionary." 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 98 

must therefore appeal to God, for Whom he was 
ready, longing, to lay down his life ; and he closed 
by warning Alexander to consider his ways, and 
not to delay the affair of his salvation. On the 
17th, he preached in St. Mark's, and on the even- 
ing of the same day he received a communication 
from the Signory requesting him to discontinue 
his sermons. He told the messengers tliat his an- 
swer would be given on the next day. On the 
18th Savonarola delivered his farewell discourse, 
crowning in sorrow and humiliation (thougli still 
deeper depths were in waiting) an unexampled 
career of devotion to the best interests of Flor- 
ence; a devotion manifested in his marvellous ser- 
mons during eight 3^ears, and in the numerous 
other good works with which he had blessed the 
Republic. 



94 JEROME SAVONAROLA, 



XIX. 

THE ''TRIAL BY FIRE." (1498.) 

Savonarola's efforts to secure the summoning 
of a Council for the reformation of the Church 
and for the deposition of Alexander VI. must not 
be judged in the light of our day. The wounds 
inflicted by the great Schism of the West, the 
Church still bore in her body. The notions pre- 
vailing as to the power of a Council were then 
exaggerated ; peculiar also were the views held 
by more than one king. The monstrous evils 
which Savonarola clearly saw and bitterly felt 
seemed to him to justify his appeal to the Catho- 
lic sovereigns of England, Germany, France, 
Spain, and Hungary. Moreover, he relied on the 
cardinals, many of whom, notably the Cardinal 
of St. Peter in Chains, were strongly opposed to 
Alexander, and had seemed anxious to secure his 
deposition or resignation. 

The letters prepared for the monarchs were not 
sent. Preliminary correspondence, however, had 
been arranged through friends in the different 
countries. These communications were sufficiently 
clear to outline the bold plan contemplated by 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 95 

Savonarola. Unfortunately the courier carrying 
the packet intended for the Florentine ambassa- 
dor in France Avas seized by spies of the Duke of 
Milan, who, to win favor with Alexander, at once 
sent to Rome the incriminating documents. Sa- 
vonarola's doom was sealed. Alone he could not 
contend, with success, against the mighty power 
of his combined foes ; he declined, nevertheless, 
to attempt escape, resolved to meet his fate in the 
same lofty spirit with which he had invited it. 

The majoi'ity of those holding political power 
in Florence completely turned against him, and 
even the Franciscans, who in the history of their 
institute had ever been affectionately united with 
the Dominicans, contributed an antagonist to swell 
the growing number of the unhappy prior's ene- 
mies. On the rapidly increasing misfortunes of a 
brave and unselfish man, prematurely worn with 
fasting, labor, suffering, and care, a miserable cul- 
mination was put, before the tragic ending, by the 
precipitation of an abortive " trial by fire." 

Friar Francis di Puglia is the name of the man 
who has achieved an unenviable notoriety as a chal- 
lenger of Savonarola to the wretched and barba- 
rous device of the "trial." After vilifying the 
prior in an unchristian manner, Francis had the 
audacity to summon him to the ordeal by fire, 
through which the Franciscan declared his readi- 
ness to prove the great Dominican a heretic and 
a false prophet. Savonarola had previously been 



96 JEno^fE savonarola. 

annoyed by such challenges, but he had alwaj^s 
ignored them, despising the barbarity as well as 
the unreasonableness of such " proofs." He treated 
the arrogant Franciscan in like manner. 

Here the matter might liave ended, in deserved 
contempt, had it not been for Father Dominic, who 
came forward and recognized the Franciscan as 
one who during the previous year had challenged 
him to a dispute, and then had run away. On be- 
half of Savonarola, Father Dominic took up the 
gauntlet which Father Francis had thrown down. 
Again he proved recreant. Pretending that he 
had no cause with Father Dominic, and that with 
Savonarola only could he deal, he hastily took ad- 
vantage of the way thus opened to liim for escape. 
But Father Dominic pursued the case with great 
eagerness, despite the warning and reproval of 
Savonarola, who wislied him to pay no further 
heed to the affair. 

The Compagnaccl then became interested, and 
used their influence with the Signory to push the 
matter, so that the people might enjoy a spectacle. 
This would have afforded a desirable opportunity 
for these dissolute young men to raise a tumult, 
in the confusion of which they would either seize 
Savonarola or kill him. A real " ordeal " was not 
desired by either the Signory or the Compagnacci, 

The Franciscan seems to have understood that 
he would not be in danger, even if some of the Do- 
minicans were burned. Nevertheless, he provided, 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 97 

like many patriots, a substitute. The arrange- 
ments, however, dragged slowly; it was the end of 
March before they were concluded. Alexander 
had heard of the contemplated ordeal, but he did 
not prohibit the exhibition. He had other cares. 

Despite his good judgment which condemned 
such a senseless encounter, despite the fact that lie 
strenuously opposed the " ordeal," Savonarola felt 
that God would vindicate the brethren of St. Mark's 
against whom much bitterness had been aroused. 
The government openly favored the Franciscans. 
This injustice only excited the zeal of Savonarola's 
followers, among whom not only were several hun- 
dred friars found ready to volunteer to undergo 
the terrible trial, but many laymen and even 
women. Of this striking fact the Pope was made 
aware through a letter sent to him bearing exclu- 
sively on this extraordinary demonstration. 

Savonarola published a statement and defence 
against his accusers, for his slanderers hesitated at 
no untruth. Obliged to take action, he took it 
boldly. He declared that for every Friar Minor 
who would appear at the trial a Dominican cham- 
pion would be ready. 

The 6th of April was the day assigned for tlie 
ordeal. On the 5th St. Mark's Community re- 
ceived notice of a postponement to the 7th. The 
Dominicans who had been enthusiastic for the con- 
test felt disappointed, but stood ready for the 7th. 
Despite the assurances given to them of immunity 



98 JEPiOME SAVONAROLA. 

from danger, despite the grievous penalties which 
had been decreed against their opponents in case 
of failure, the Franciscans demanded still further 
guaranties. These were granted in the form of a 
resolution by the Signory, which provided that if 
Father Dominic perished in the flames, Savonarola 
would be banished within three hours. 

How absurd it all seems ! How barbarous and 
un-Christian ! Yet these were times of a certain 
refinement, of much learning, of great faith ; but 
also, alas ! of great superstition, of shameful de- 
pravity, of legal methods that remind us of sav- 
ages ; and men, even of Savonarola's stature were, 
to an extent, under the spell ! 

It is not necessary to dwell in further detail on 
this farcical ordeal. The Dominicans attended ; the 
Franciscans appeared, after much dehi}', and then, 
with various unworthy quibbles and tricky subter- 
fuges. The day passed ; there was no spectacle. 
The disappointed throngs that had stood for hours, 
eager to witness the barbarous ordeal, dispersed 
with anger in their hearts against Savonarola, who 
had not faltered ; but, mob-like, with applause for 
his opponents, who had shirked the contest in a 
cowardly fashion, every concession finding them 
still more reluctant to meet tlie adversaries whom 
they had challenged to the trial. Human nature, 
in Florence, as the world over, in the waning days 
of the fifteenth centur}^ as in the period of refined 
and delicate civilization which the nineteenth 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 99 

claims as its own, was proving its title to little- 
ness, ingratitude, and cruelty. 

Escorted by devoted adherents, who defended 
them with drawn swords (and it was necessary), 
the Dominicans found their return to St. Mark's a 
difficult and })erilous journey. The Compagnacci 
were nimble in insult and outrage, and, of course, 
the mob joined them. But the gallant followers 
of Marsuccio Salviati (whose resolute threat, that 
he would cut down any man who crossed the line 
of safety lie had drawn around his revered friars, 
was well understood), conducted to St. Mark's the 
Prior and liis brethren, wlio had been subjected to 
so mortifying a deception by the infamous plotters 
and their tools, the misguided Minors. 

In a few days the Compagyiacci and all the other 
enemies of the now helpless and doomed victim 
were able to celebrate a triumph which was the 
beginning of Florence's downfall. " The death of 
the friar," said Pope Julius II., "preceded by a 
few years the death of the Republic." 



100 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



XX. 

THE ATTACK ON ST. MARK'S. — ARREST OF THE FRIAR. 

Events now rushed to their conclusion. Main^ 
of the supporters of Savonarohx were disappointed. 
They had hoped, and indeed believed, that lie 
would enter the fire, and come out unscathed, to 
the confusion of his enemies. The Arrahhiati and 
Compagnacci., seeing the hesitation of tliose in 
power, Avho still clung to the fallen prior, re- 
doubled their vicious efforts, determined to strike 
the first blow, to shed the first blood. 

Alone with God, Savonarola passed the evening 
of the "ordeal." His great heart must have known 
the depths of agony, as wave after wave of doubt, 
of regret, of disappointment, of humiliation, of 
cruellest ingratitude, swept over his soul, ingulf- 
ing him as in a sea of woe. 

Tlie next day was Palm Sunday. He made a 
short address in the morning. Seeming to realize 
the catastrophe that was impending, he again pro- 
claimed his readiness to die, to seal with his blood 
the purity, tlie truth, the honor, the glory, of the 
doctrine he had preached, and the life he had 
lived. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 101 

His enraged and already triumphant enemies 
took liim at his word. The Compagnacci precipi- 
tated a quarrel with some of the Piagiioiii. They 
prevented a Dominican from speaking in tlie ca- 
thedral, and tliis outrage they followed by brutally 
killiug two unoffending men whom they met on 
the street. Then the nuirderons ruffians rushed to 
St. Mark's, and as the friars were chanting Ves- 
jDers, on the inoffensive worshippers, men, women, 
and children, the cowardly and sacrilegious wretches 
rained a storm of stones. In terror the people fled, 
bruised, wounded, many of them trampled under 
foot in their mad effort to gain the street. Quickly 
were tlie doors of church and convent barred, while 
a small band, thirty in number, of determined men 
remained within, resolved to defend the house of 
God and the brethren. Unknown to Savonarola 
a few shields and muskets had been stored in the 
convent cellar by some of his friends, in view of 
an anticipated attack. On seeing the warlike prep- 
arations for defence, he forbade all violence, and 
declared that he would surrender himself to avoid 
bloodshed. His wishes were disregarded by some 
of the brethren as well as by the laymen ; neither 
would they permit him to depart. For several 
hours the contest was waged with obstinacy on 
the part of the besiegers, with great courage on the 
part of the handful of defenders. In cloister, in 
corridors, in choir, and in church, the fight was 
sustained. From the altar and the pulpit gunshots 



102 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

rang out, while crucifix and candlestick were seized 
as ready weapons by the friars whom Savonarola 
could not restrain, resolved as they were to protect 
their home, and to sell their lives as brave men. 

To the shame of the government no help was 
sent the beleaguered convent. Rather were the 
rioters encouraged, while their partisans flocked to 
their aid. The noble Valori, Savonarola's ever 
loyal friend, was cut down in the street while on 
his way to gather re-enforcements for the convent, 
and a few minutes later his wife was foully assassi- 
nated by the infuriated rabble, who then sacked 
his house. Even these murders did not move the 
Signory to punish the guilty. On the contrary, 
they sent several orders to the convent, demand- 
ing that the innocent defenders lay down their 
arms, and finally that Savonarola and Fathers 
Dominic and Sj^lvester should be arrested. 

The parting of the prior from his brethren, from 
the living, the dead, and the dying defenders of his 
beloved St. Mark's, which he was to leave, alas ! 
forever, was a scene of tenderness, resignation, 
courage, religion. Late at night, bound, and sur- 
rounded by a howling mob that heaped insults, im- 
precations, and blows on him, the fallen leader was 
dragged to prison. In an adjoining cell Father 
Dominic was placed. On the following day Father 
S3dvester was arrested, and brought to share their 
confinement. 

Misleading reports were sent by the Signory to 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 103 

various courts, and to Alexander a petition was 
also addressed craving absolution for the bloody 
and sacrilegious work that had been done, asking 
permission to try the ecclesiastics ; and like cun- 
ning but overreaching politicians, they added their 
former request that they might be authorized to 
tax churches. 

To these "worthy sons of Holy Church," to the 
sacrilegious cowards and murderers, greeting came 
Avith permission to try, which meant in that cruel 
age to torture, the poor prisoners. Alexander 
added that the condemned should be sent to him 
for punishment. Of course judgment had already 
be€n passed ; their condemnation was assumed and 
assured. The Pope granted nothing as to the 
church taxes. At the same time tidings came of 
the death of Charles VIII. The miserable ending 
of the French monarch on the very day of tlie 
ordeal by fire, removed Savonarola's last earthly 
hope. 



104 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



XXI. 

TRIAL AND TORTURE 

The trial of Savonarola and his companions was 
a mockery, an outrage on justice, whose merest 
forms were preserved to cover and, if possible, to 
legalize a premeditated judicial murder. 

The papers stolen from the sacked convent gave 
no evidence against the prior, nor could any incrim- 
inating testimony be secured through the numer- 
ous arrests that followed the incarceration of the 
friars. The dastardly attempt of the captain of 
the Compagnacci to rouse the people against Savo- 
narola, by conveying through the streets some of 
the weapons that had figured in the storming of 
St. Mark's, met with considerable success. The dis- 
credited and imprisoned champion of their libertj- 
was held up to them as the despoiler of their free- 
dom, as a violent despot ; and the stupid, ungrate- 
ful multitude believed the cruel lie, and loudly 
clamored for the death of the man who had spent 
himself for them. 

Florentine customs, intended to safeguard ac- 
cused persons, were ruthlessly set aside, while the 
laws that might have served as a barrier against 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 105 

the conspirators were as recklessly trampled under 
foot. On the 14th of April, though Savonarola's 
torture .began on the 9tli, when he was first 
brought to the Council Hall, a new, irregular, ille- 
gal court was organized, composed of Savonarola's 
sworn enemies, at their head the infamous leader 
of the Compa<j7iacci. The determination to convict 
was evident, no matter what the cost in fraud, 
outrage, perjury, or even torture. 

We shall not linger over the agonizing details ; 
a summary of the proceedings will be sufficient. 
Broken with illness and labor, his originally deli- 
cate constitution having yielded to the austerities 
and toils which he had imposed on himself, Sa- 
vonarola was led before his judges. He had al- 
ready been questioned in an informal way. Again, 
according to the brutal code of the time, the tor- 
ture was applied. Fiendish Indians, dancing in 
savage joy around their scalped victim, deserve 
our applause when contrasted with the civilized 
legislators of those days, who disgraced Christian- 
ity and liumanity by their ingenious cruelty in 
dealing with accused persons. 

Insulted, outraged, the prisoner, well-nigh ex- 
hausted by the terrible experience of the previous 
few days, was bound to the rope and pulley, and, 
having been lifted and suddenly dropped, his poor 
body was stretched till the bones and muscles were 
racked.^ While in this condition he was ques- 

1 This method of torture often rendered the victim delirious. 



106 JEROME SAVONABOLA. 

tioiied. The charges were under the three heads of 
faith, prophecies, politics. The inhumanity of tlie 
examination by torture seems almost incredible ; 
yet these men were Christians, and tlieir victim 
was a holy priest who had conferred most precious 
benefits upon them and their people. Savonarola's 
answers were in part clear, and again they were un- 
satisfactory ; ^ in fact, he raved, amid his agonizing 
cries to God that his soul might be delivered. Re- 
leased from his bonds, he was ordered to write his 
declaration. He complied. The paper, however, 
was destroyed. It did not suit the evil purpose of 
liis persecutors because it told only the trutli.^ 

Relegated to his lonely cell, he was left to endure 
the sufferings of a wrenched and lacerated frame, as 
well as the sorrow that must have filled his soul 
on realizing how abandoned and betrayed he Avas. 
With true religious spirit he prayed for his cruel 
enemies. 

In the meantime a wretch named Ceccone, who 
had received much kindness from Savonarola, which 
lie repaid by acting as a spy for the Duke of Milan, 
offered his services (though the law debarred him, 
as secretary for the judges), guaranteeing tliat he 
would produce a deposition that would be effec- 
tive. This traitor and perjurer was engaged. 

1 " Torment to lye sometimes will drive 
Ev'n the most innocent alive." 

Ex Mlmis Puhlicanis. 
Quoted by Montaigne in his essay on " Conscience." 
2 See our extract from Napier, pp. 134, 135. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 107 

In a few days tlie trial was resumed. For eleven 
days it continued, during which time we cannot 
state how often Savonarola was put to the torture ; 
but, as one eye-witness declared, he received on a 
certain day fourteen turns of the pulley. Hot 
coals were applied to the soles of his feet ; and yet 
the infamous judges declared that he freely con- 
fessed, and was not under restraint of any kind. 
On only one count did he waver in his examina- 
tion. His judges pressed the point as to prophecies, 
with great vehemence ; but beyond a certain vague- 
ness, a want of absolute conviction on his part, they 
could secure no evidence. On politics he was firm 
even in his delirium ; on religion nothing could 
shake him at any time. He was no longer asked or 
allowed to write. Ceccone made all the notes as 
the examination proceeded ; and subsequently he 
made a draft that was a tissue of forgeries, to which 
he secured the name of Savonarola, having first 
deceived him by reading the correct report, and 
then passing to him the one falsified, which he was 
directed to sign. Assuredly a diabolical plot ! 

Nevertheless, even this mutilated document did 
not contain sufificient to justify his death ; rather 
did it establish his innocence. The traitorous sec- 
retar}^ had signally failed in his endeavor. 

Three days later the baffled conspirators put the 
prior to a second trial, again changing and distort- 
ing the depositions. This examination lasted four 
days, but its results were even more disappointing 



108 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

to his judges than were those of the first trial. 
Though the popuhice was perplexed, many saw 
clearly through the dishonest and illegal work of 
the Signory, and of its corrupt judicial tools. 

On April the 26tli Father Dominic and Father 
Sylvester were summoned before the court. The 
former, ever loyal, ever heroic, if imprudent or im- 
pulsive at times, was the first to be subjected to 
the torture. Pulley and rack and iron boot were 
all used, but liis splendid courage never failed. 
He even showed himself stanch aofainst the vil- 
lanous attempts made to weaken him through the 
false statements of his torturers that Savonarola 
had acknowledged himself an impostor and a false 
prophet. He wrote his deposition, and it also was 
distorted. Again and again they racked his poor 
bod3% but his undaunted spirit they could not break. 
Noble soul, worthy of a noble leader ! 

Father Sylvester failed under the torture. A 
weak man, who had not deserved the consideration 
shown to him by Savonarola, he yielded under the 
agony of the rack, and not only betrayed the names 
of the laymen who were friends of St. Mark's, but 
even aspersed the character of the prior. 

Other friars and laymen Avere tortured, but noth- 
ing substantial resulted from the examinations 
that could incriminate Savonarola. On the con- 
trary, despite the forgeries of Ceccone, the prior's 
innocence was more clearly established as a conse- 
quence of these trials. During these days of sor- 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 109 

row lie languished in his cell, all communication 
with his brethren or with counsellors having been 
interdicted according to another delicate require- 
ment of that refined period. While the helpless 
prior was suffering the agon}" of examination, the 
friars of St. Mark's, with few exceptions, also turned 
against him. Their petition to the Pope is a docu- 
ment that strangely contradicts their former life 
and conversation. They might have justly sought 
absolution, but it was not necessary for them to 
slander their prior; thus offering another lesson of 
" ingratitude more strong than traitors' arms." 

In the meantime the Pope and the Signory were 
engaged in correspondence, the former demanding 
the surrender to him of Savonarola, the latter 
claiming the right of a sovereign state to execute 
condemned citizens, and adding, hypocritically, the 
specious pretext that, for example's sake, for the 
welfare of religion, the malefactor should be pun- 
ished in the place where his notorious crimes had 
been conmiitted. The unfortunate victim was held 
by the Florentines as a sort of price, in the hope 
of extorting from Alexander the ecclesiastical tax 
privilege they had so often requested, and for which 
Savonarola himself had so generously striven.^ 
This must have been as the iron in his soul, but 
he spoke no word of impatience or resentment. 

1 Subsequently the Pope granted, but only for three years, the 
ecclesiastical taxes in favor of the Government. 



110 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



XXII. 

IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT. 

From April 25tli till May 19th Savonarola had 
been kept in solitary confinement. In this interval 
much had been accomplished. A new Signory 
had been elected, even more determined in its 
malignity than the retiring board. Papal commis- 
sioners were despatched to Florence to preside at 
the closing scenes, for by this time (May 11th) the 
death of the victims was considered as assured 
beyond any chance of mishap. 

On May 19th the two Papal commissioners, 
Father Joachim Turriano, Master General of the 
Dominicans, and Dr. Francis Romolino, a Spanish 
bishop, afterwards cardinal, arrived in Florence. A 
Dominican prelate named Paganotti, Bishop of 
Vasona, and apparently an auxiliary of the Arch- 
bishop of Florence, was designated by Alexander 
to degrade the friars, and then to hand them over 
to the secular power. 

" The very dregs of the people," as Villari writes, 
" flocked around the commissioners as they entered 
the city, shouting ' Death to the friar ! ' " Bishop 
Romolino, in a spirit at least unbecoming to his 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. Ill 

office if not to his episcopal character, answered, 
"Surely he will die." We may therefore credit 
the statements of Burlamacchi, that letters had 
been received in Florence declaring that these 
commissioners had been instructed to put Savona- 
rola to death even were he another John the Bap- 
tist ; and that Romolino, later in the day, brutally 
declared, " We shall have a great bonfire, for I 
have the sentence already prepared." Never in 
human affairs was there a viler prostitution of jus- 
tice, never was there a more infamous outrage in 
the name of law ! And shall we add in the name 
of religion ? 

Here let us return to the lonely prisoner in the 
tower, and to his two companions. During the 
time of their incarceration the three friars had been 
kept in close and solitary confinement. The legis- 
lation and jurisprudence of those days, as applied 
in courts and prisons, might well have been de- 
vised, as was said of the English penal laws against 
Ireland, by the arch enemy of men and in the 
infernal regions. Suspicion and superstition were 
in the air, nor was their influence upon laymen 
only. Father Dominic's red cope, his habit, his 
crucifix, were objected to on the day of the ordeal 
because of probable enchantment, a subtle force 
that his religious opponents also claimed might 
assert itself because of his standing near the Do- 
minicans. And so, cope and habit and crucifix 
having been put away, the friar himself was ordered 



112 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

to stand apart. It was this narrow, unchristian 
spirit, bred of the lingering barbarism and paganism 
that prevailed among the Florentine authorities 
in their treatment of the noble prisoner and his 
companions. 

Fortunately the torture had not entirely dis- 
abled his right hand — a hand that had never been 
lifted except in zealous warning or fatherly bless- 
ing ; and so he spent the waiting hours in writing 
beautiful commentaries on the Thirtieth and Fifti- 
eth Psalms : " In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped," and 
" Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy 
great mei'cy." No complaint, no word of impa- 
tience, no countercharge, no defence, no expression 
that outraged innocence might, not unreasonably, 
have put forth, found its way into these writings. 
Only the soundest Catholic doctrine, the truest 
principles of the spiritual life, can be found in 
these tracts, the last legacy of the silenced preacher, 
who could now speak only with his eloquent pen. 
In the commentaries on the Fiftieth Psalm some 
liave pretended to find the Protestant doctrine of 
justification by faith alone without good works. 
We shall dispose of this libel in another place. 
These treatises were rapidly disseminated, and 
were justly regarded with peculiar veneration. 

Another instance of Savonarola's zeal and gene- 
lous spirit we find in the service rendered to his 
jailer. This poor man, seeing with eyes unpreju- 
diced, and from a heart in which no lurking hatred 



JEliOME SAVONAROLA. 113 

had left its poison, felt the goodness, the holiness, 
of the prisoner whose keeper he was. As a memo- 
rial that he would cherish, he begged Savonarola 
to write something for him. Without paper, 
having only the cover of a book, the prior wrote 
on this, in his wonderfully fine hand, a rule for 
virtuous living, in Avliich he summed up, as a 
conclusion, the essentials of sacramental grace and 
good works. 

Thus, in these hours of pain and solitude, he 
dwelt with God, and thought only of his coming 
death as a release from earthly sorrow, and as an 
entrance to heaveidy joys. Father Dominic and 
even Father Sylvester also manifested a truly reli- 
gious and courageous spirit during these trying 
days. 



11 J: JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



XXIII. 

EXECUTION OF SAVONAROLA. 

On May 20tli Savonarola was taken before the 
Papal commissioners for renewed torture and a 
third examination. The infamous Ceccone, as- 
sisted by other scribes worthy of his companionship 
in fraud and distortion, was present to record the 
prisoner's ansAvers, and then to falsify them. This 
third so-called " trial " was even a more cruel and 
shameful mockery of law than w^ere the preceding 
examinations. Now religion presided, in name ; 
but in fact, alas ! the affair was a cowardly at- 
tempt by Florentine politicians to justif}^ in a legal 
fashion, a pre-arranged plan, a judgment already 
determined. Abominable questions were put to 
the tortured prior regarding his personal life. His 
acknowledged virtues had anticipated such ques- 
tions in completest repudiation. As to the Council 
for which he had hoped, he spoke bravely. On no 
Italian potentates had he relied ; for they were his 
enemies, and in the same category he placed the 
cardinals and other prelates. 

Rendered delirious by the torture, he again raved, 
and spoke of the Cardinal of Naples as one cogni- 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 115 

zant of his plans ; but on the return of reason he 
recalled this statement. In the same noble spirit 
he abjured the denials that pulley and rope had be- 
fore wrung from his wandering mind and helpless 
tongue. We contemplate with sentiments of pity 
the spectacle of those judges as they gazed, un- 
moved, on the prisoner now almost insane from 
pain, broken in bod}-, and (as he held up his shat- 
tered arm) piteously cr3^ing out for mercy to Jesus 
Whom he thought he had denied. He had faltered 
during the previous trials, on the matter of the 
prophecies ; he had denied that he possessed any 
supernatural endowment in the way of prophecy ; 
but before his judges he now asserted Avhat he felt 
to be the truth, and grievously deplored the weak- 
ness which had led him, as he too strongly put it, 
to deny God. 

On the 21st and 22d he was also tortured and 
examined. Promises alternated with threats, but 
lie could not be shaken. His malignant judges 
attempted to frame a document embodying the fal- 
sified depositions of this third trial. Despite this 
fraudulent paper, without signature or witness, 
despite the ingenuity of Ceccone and of a band of 
citizens who sought, by surprise, an interview with 
the prior in his prison cell, hoping to entrap him in 
his words, the conspirators realized tliat they had 
no plea or justification in law that could be offered 
to the public. Tlie barbarous work of six weeks 
of torture and of forgery had only one clear result, 



116 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

— tlie innocence of tlie illustrious prisoner was 
made more manifest. On the third day of the ex- 
amination by the Papal commissioners (the 22d) 
the sentence, already resolved on, was formally 
decreed, — death by hanging, the bodies afterwards 
to be burned ! On the same eveninp- the three 

o 

friars heard their fate. They were condemned to 
be executed early on the morrow. 

Atrocious speed ! But an evil deed, even as that 
of Judas, should be done quickl}-. The timid Syl- 
vester received the tidings with great agitation ; 
Dominic was full of joy ; Savonarola manifested 
no feeling. He had already passed beyond the in- 
fluence of earthly hope or fear. Only one word 
now would he speak, and that was to the member 
who came from the Company of the Temple, an or- 
ganization instituted for the solace of the dying. 
Through him the prior sought the favor of com- 
municating with his two brethren. To this good 
man he also revealed, in a prophetic spirit, that 
woe would come upon the Church and Florence 
when a Pope named Clement should sit in Rome. 
And so it happened a generation later. 

Savonarola's request for an interview was reluc- 
tantly granted by the Signory. In the hall of the 
Grand Council the prior met his two spiritual sons. 
The liour went quickly by, nor on its sacredness 
may we intrude, though its beautiful lesson we 
shall note. The night wore away, and the lovely 
May morning in the glad Paschal time, the eve of 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 117 

the Ascension, broke with a freshness and life that, 
to the weary victims, seemed but as the dawn of 
an everlasting day, the promise of their ascension 
from this vale of tears. All made a devout confes- 
sion, and were absolved. The prior was allowed 
to celebrate Mass. From his hands his two com- 
panions received the Bread of life. His profession 
of faith, in which they also joined, was a declara- 
tion of Catholic doctrine expressed in tender and 
touching words. 

Then bare of foot and head, with hands bound, 
the three were led out. The scaffold had been 
erected ; and for the bishop whose duty it was to 
degrade the ecclesiastics, for the Papal commis- 
sioners, and for the lay judges, places had been 
respectively arranged. The surrender of tlie scap- 
ular was the first demand made upon the three 
friars. As the distinctive mark of his habit, this 
deprivation was a severe trial to Savonarola. But 
he yielded bravely though with aching heart. " I 
do not forsake thee, O holy scapular," he said, "gift 
of God, which I have ever kept without stain ! 
How I longed to wear thee to the end, but now I 
am bereft of thee." 

The work of degrading the friars followed next.^ 

1 By degradation is understood the penalty inflicted on a cleric 
for certain very grievous offences, in consequence of which the 
person degraded is deprived of the privileges attaching to the 
clerical state, and as a layman may be handed over to the civil 
power, even for the execiition of capital punishment. See "A 
Catholic Dictionary" for details. 



118 JEROME SAVONABOLA. 

" I separate thee," the bishop said, addressing 
Savonarola, "from the Church militant and," he 
added incautiously, "from the Church triumphant." 
— " From the Church militant, yes," replied Savo- 
narola, " but from the Church triumphant, no ; this 
does not belong to you." The degraded friars, clad 
only in their under tunics, were then passed to the 
Papal commissioners, who pronounced condemna- 
tion against them for heresy and schism. Finally 
they were delivered to the secular authorities, the 
bench of judges, by whom the capital sentence was 
announced. 

On hearing the result the mob shouted its 
insane approval, its virtuous conviction that the 
men thus humiliated were indeed guilty. " It is 
easy," a well-known writer has said, " to believe 
in the damnable state of a man who stands stripped 
and degraded." Then were seen the spirit of the 
leader and the docility of the two disciples to the 
lessons of the last sad interview of the night be- 
fore. On their bowed heads the words of abso- 
lution had fallen, and with reverence they had 
accepted the plenary indulgence granted ; but 
no word was spoken by tliem except in prayer. 
Father Dominic's desire to be burned alive was 
no longer thought of ; F'ather Sylvester's deter- 
mination to declare his innocence was set aside. 
Previously he liad recalled the untrue statements 
made by liim under torture. 

Both loyally and religiously went to their death, 




1^ IftiAnt -I 




EXECUTION OF SAVONAROLA AND HIS COM 

P'rom a jiaintiiij^ by an iinkm 




ONS IN THE PIAZZA DELLA SKINORIA. 

ist of tlie ifitli century- 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 119 

as did their prior, silent, courageous, caring nauglit 
for human justification, entirely resigned to the 
goodness of God.^ Savonarola was the last to be 
executed. Between his brethren his poor emaciated 
body swung suspended in ignominy while the flames 
leaped high to make perfect the. holocaust. And 
while the fierce mob, full of hate, and gloating 
over the horrible spectacle, melted away ; while 
the wicked judges and politicians went back to 
plot and to continue their work of persecution 
against the Piagnoni, some of whom even then 
were eagerly and devoutly seeking relics of their 
loved prophet and guide ; the ashes were rudely 
gathered up, by command of the magistrates, and, 
having been carried to the river-bank, were wan- 
tonly scattered on the flowing waters of the Arno. 
Pitiable triumph of political vengeance ! 

Denied a tomb, the martyrs' memories were en- 
shrined in the hearts of their faithful disciples.^ 
For more than two hundred years, on each recur- 
ring 23d of May, fragrant flowers were tenderly 
brought by loving hands, and reverently laid on 

1 The shameful treatment accorded to the prisoners by the 
populace on the night of their arrest was renewed on the morn- 
ing of their execution. Some of the details as given by ISIiran- 
dola in his Latin life of Savonarola are unfit for presentation in 
English. He mentions one man, guilty of a sacrilegious outrage, 
on whom, shortly afterwards, the seeming, if not evident, judg- 
ment of God fell. 

2 "O Rome, ungrateful country, thou shalt not even possess 
my bones! " Scipio Africanus's sad and indignant words we may 
apply for Savonarola to ungrateful Florence. 



120 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

a spot that to them was hallowed. Thus were 
treasured the fame and virtues of the great prior. 
The Medici, restored fourteen years after Savona- 
rola's death, erected on the scene of his execu- 
tion a magnificent fountain, in the vain hope that 
his name might be forgotten. Four hundred years 
have gone by, and, despite misunderstanding and 
calumny, the lustre of his fame shines more glori- 
ously than in the passing hour of his triumph. 
The storm of fierce passions which raged around 
him in life has forever subsided; pope and prince 
and politician who shared in his career have passed 
before the bar of eternal justice, Avhere an ever- 
lasting seal has been set on the judgment divinely 
rendered. And though the judgment of history 
has not been finally pronounced, the mists of preju- 
dice have been dissipated by the sun of truth, in 
w^hose clear light Savonarola, with all his faults, 
stands forth, assuredly a grand figure in the galaxy 
of the world's great men. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



SECOND PART. 
I. 

ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC AND NON-CATHOLIC WRITERS. 

To estimate the character, the career, and the 
lasting work of Savonarola, is our purpose in this 
second part of our sketch. The Catholic histories 
of the Church in general use are by no means sat- 
isfactory guides when they discuss this important 
matter. Some are misleading ; others are so inac- 
curate regarding the facts of Savonarola's life that 
their judgment of the man has little if any value. 

Rohrbacher, in his " Universal History of the 
Church," gives a very meagre account of tlie grave 
matters involved in the history of Florence during 
the last decade of the fifteenth century ; but he 
does not hesitate, curtly and absolutely, to con- 
demn Savonarola, alleging that the friar excused 
his disobedience to the Papal commands by addu- 
cing reasons he knew to be false. This verdict, it 

121 



122 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

may justly be said, lacks the safeguards of suffi- 
cient testimony ; it does not convey the whole 
truth ; it is misleading. Deciding too much, it 
may be set aside as nnjust. In comparing Savo- 
narola to Cham, and then lashing him for exposing 
his father's ignominy (by his criticisms of Pope 
Alexander), Rohrbacher presents a forced illustra- 
tion, a distorted figure, a mere trick of rhetoric. 
History's interests, as well as those of truth, are 
not conserved by such writing. 

Darras is a popular author. Though neither 
thoroughness, nor wide learning, marks his four 
large volumes, yet he is much read by those who 
cannot go more deeply into churcli history. Deal- 
ing with Savonarola, Darras is not only misleading, 
but he is positively wrong as to tlie occasion of 
the prior's downfall. He pretends that Savonarola 
opposed the appeal of the conspirators who were 
executed, and that in consequence of the tumult 
that ensued in Florence, he was summoned to 
Rome. A reference to the facts and dates, as we 
have given them, will show how absurd is this 
statement, and how little " history " it contains. 

Alzog's reputation for learning far exceeds that 
of Darras. But concerning Savonarola the German 
professor is not more satisfactory than the French 
abbe. Representing the prior as introducing the 
question of Florentine liberty at the bedside of 
Lorenzo, omitting all mention of tlie religious 
aspects of the supposed interview, and reducing 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 123 

the episode to a political encounter between the 
friar and the prince, Alzog is either wofully igno- 
rant, or he wilfully distorts. His further state- 
ments that Charles VIII. expelled Piero de' 
]\ledici ; that the Republic was " found impracti 
cable ; " that six conspirators were executed ; the , 
the Dominicans caused the failure of the ordeal ; 
and that "it would seem that he [Savonarola] is 
not unfairly charged Avith being a forerunner of 
Luther," enable us to judge the value of Alzog 
on this subject. His closing remark that Savona- 
rola's teaching was Catholic, and that it was a 
blunder to represent liim as one of a group of " re- 
formers " of the sixteenth century, contains not 
only a contradiction of the previous censure — or 
qualified censure — of the friar as a "forerunner" 
of Luther, but it rs so inexact in expression, so 
unmindful of the accuracies which time and fact 
demand, that we dismiss it with a word of warning 
against such " history." 

The distinguished Italian historian, Cesare Cantu, 
has sketched the life of the Ferrarese friar in the 
"Storia Universale," and in the " Storia d' Italia," 
as well as in " Gli Eretici d' Italia." More studi- 
ous, intelligent, and temperate than tlie writers 
we have just quoted, the judgment he passes is, 
nevertheless, defective, and one with which we are 
not in entire agreement. Savonarola, writes Cantii, 
was "a man of faith, of superstition, of genius, 
abounding in charity. Contrary to Luther, who 



124 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

confided entirely in reason, he believed in personal 
inspiration. Arguments in his favor, as well as 
against him, may be drawn from his works, which, 
as a whole, evidence his attempt to harmonize rea- 
son with faith, Catholicity with political freedom." 
... " In no wise did he impugn the authority 
of the Roman See, although he resisted one whom 
he believed to be an illegitimate occupant of 
that See, and against whom lie tried to invoke a 
Council which would reform the Church legiti- 
mately. Pride resulted from popularity, opposition 
induced excess ; but he worked with a pure con- 
science, and without personal ambition. His opin- 
ions he endeavored to propagate by example, and 
not by force ; he believed in the efficacy of truth." 
... " Thinking to guide a mob by means of pas- 
sion and of the hurly-burly of street crowds, he 
fell a victim to one and the other, as commonly 
happens." ... " The fame of Savonarola remains 
suspended between heaven and hell, but all de- 
plored his death, and especially, perhaps, those 
who had caused it." . . . "Not one of the fol- 
lowers of the great friar figures among the dis- 
ciples of Luther or among the betra3^ers of his 
country's liberty. Michelangelo, who raised bas- 
tions for his native city, and also the gi-andest 
church in Christendom, always venerated Savo- 
narola." ^ 

In the " History of the Papacy in tlie Fifteenth 

1 Gli Eretici d' Italia, Torino, 18G5, vol. i., pp. 234, 235. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 125 

Century," Cliristoplie appreciates the famous friar 
in the following words : — 

" Savonarola's eloquence is not that which comes from 
the use of the orator's arts, or from a depth of reasoning, or 
from an emotion agitating the orator's self. It was an elo- 
quence which seemed to despise all human aids, and which, 
like the mystical figures of Fra Angelico, aspires to heaven, 
and does not touch the earth. . . . Savonarola is like no 
other orator. True or pretended, he is a prophet ; he has 
the visions, the incoherence, the figurative language, the 
rashness of one. For this reason, rather than by means of 
his talent, great as it was, he captivated the multitude. 

" Some make a fanatic, a sectarian, an impostor, of Sa- 
vonarola; others an apostle, a saint. The fact is, there is 
something of all these in the Dominican. If we open the 
door of his cell at St, jNIark's, and there contemplate him at 
the foot of the crucifix, attenuated by fasting and wrapt 
in an ecstasy of prayer; if we follow him to Santa Maria 
del Fiore, and hear him reproaching voluptuous Florence 
with her vices, Savonarola is a saint, an apostle. But if we 
turn to the other side, and behold the tribune who mixes 
politics with religion, the declaimer who inveighs against 
the existing powers, the seer who opposes a divine mission 
to the authority of the head of the Church, Savonarola is 
very like a fanatic, a sectarian, an impostor. Unfortunately 
he finished his life with the latter character ; such was the 
impression he made upon the spectators when he left the 
scene ; and we may well ask ourselves whether, if he had 
preserved the popular favor, he would have anticipated the 
role of the monk of Wittenberg. Protestants appear not to 
doubt it, for they claim Savonarola as one of their fore- 
runners. But they forget that this monk broke the link 
which might have connected him with their rebellion, on 



126 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

the day, when, at the foot of the stake, he accepted the ab- 
solution of the Pope, and handed down to posterity that 
tardy but solemn proof of his repentance. . . . Savonarola 
knew not how to be either apostle or saint. We would 
hesitate to call him a sectary, and we would dislike still 
more to style him an impostor."^ We regard him as a sin- 
cere but prodigiously imaginative preacher. / If we have 
studied him rightly, he appears to have been carried away 
in the current of an unregulated imagination from the day 
when he began his prophetic exposition of the Apocalypse, 
to that when he openly substituted for the authority of the 
Church that of his own pretended celestial mission. Un- 
doubtedly his eloquence is wonderful, but it is that of a 
vehement declaimer rather than that of a solid and enlight- 
ened teacher. We see in it the violent and convulsive agi- 
tation of a fever, rather than an effort of powerful and 
healthy thought. Ilis energy does not warm, it burns, it 
boils over like the lava from a volcano. It does not illu- 
mine, it dazzles; it does not guide, it impels. . . . His 
spirit cannot understand the positive side of things. Sa- 
vonarola is seldom true ; exaggeration seems to be his 
domain ; his figures are colossal, his situations forced, his 
end greater than his means. We need not be surprised if 
a man so organized, with such a power of imagination and 
such weakness of sense, influenced by the enthusiasm 
which his words aroused, and by an idolatrous worship ac- 
corded him — if such a man becomes intoxicated with him- 
self, . . . and if he believes himself to be an envoy of the 
Lord. Savonarola succumbed to the hatred of factions 
which he had himself excited. In our days he would have 
succumbed to ridicule." ^ 

1 With slight changes we adopt the translation printed by 
Doctor Parsons in his "Studies in Church History." 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 127 

Doctor Parsons, in his " Studies in Church His- 
tory," a work which is still in course of publica- 
tion, devotes a special chapter to Savonarola. In 
general the spirit displayed is one of fairness, 
though we deprecate the use of the word " agi- 
tator " as applied to the preacher. It is an unde- 
served reproach. This author treats the story of 
the trial of Savonarola with a scantiness that is 
very unsatisfactory. His statement that Savona- 
rola demanded to be tried in Florence is not sup- 
ported by the prior's letters. We find no evidence 
that he ever demanded a trial either at Rome, or 
Florence, or elsewhere. Nor can we agree with 
this author that much of the sympathetic interest 
which Savonarola's memory has evoked is attribu- 
table to the fact that the friar is a poetical figure, 
appealing to the imagination. And finally we take 
positive issue with the doctor when he declares that 
Catholics who have praised Savonarola have been 
influenced by " the unhistorical and un theological 
theory of a distinction between the Church and the 
Papacy." ^ We believe that a careful consideration 
of facts, as we have recorded them, will be a suffi- 
cient refutation of this rather sweeping charge. 

The distinguished German historian of the Popes, 
Dr. Ludwig Pastor,^ affords considerable space to 
Savonarola in the third volume of his learned 

1 We have a warm feeling for Savonarola, but the distinction 
named we as warmly condemn, and so did Savonarola. 

2 " Geschichte der Piipste in der Zeitalter der Renaissance," 
Freiburg, 1895, vol. iii., pp. 377^12. 



128 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

work, in which he treats of the Pontiffs of the 
Renaissance period. With his estimate of the 
great prior many will probably agree, though we 
believe that occasionally his judgment is over se- 
vere, and we are certain that for some statements 
lie fails to offer either good reasons or satisfactory 
authorities. He regards Savonarola as an extrem- 
ist and a visionary, an opinion that ignores certain 
extraordinary facts not otherwise readily explained, 
if one wholly rejects the apposite theory of the 
preacher's genuine prophetic power. We agree 
with Doctor Pastor that Savonarola's fiery appeal 
for summary vengeance on all who would attempt 
the overthrow of the Republic was scarcely in 
keeping with the spirit which should ever actuate 
the priest ; but should not his defect be condoned 
in view of the conditions and circumstances of the 
extraordinary affair? The charges that Savonarola 
admitted married women to the cloister without 
the consent of their husbands, that he encour- 
aged espionage among children on their parents, 
among servants on tlieir employers, that his rigorous 
methods occasioned family quarrels and divisions, 
are not sustained. We find nothing to justify these 
serious accusations. Rather is the whole tenor of 
Savonarola's life their contradiction. Touching his 
relations with the Pope, Savonarola is judged in a 
Catholic spirit by Doctor Pastor, who says, how- 
ever, that the friar failed to give the proof of a 
divine commission because, at a certain period, he 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 129 

refused to yield obedience. On this point we sug- 
gest that the historian's statement is not conclu- 
sive. As to events following Savonarola's failure 
in complete obedience to the Pope, we admit that 
the divine commission is not in evidence ; as to 
Savonarola's 2)revious labors, we do not see how a 
subsequent error could have vitiated their charac- 
ter, Avaiving all question of merit retained or lost. 
Moses assuredly had a divine commission, though at 
the close his slight fault was severely punished by 
God, Who witldield the temporal glory and crown. 
Admitting that worldliness in the Papacy culmi- 
nated in Alexander, Doctor Pastor rightly contends, 
with St. Catherine of Siena, whom he quotes hap- 
pily, that even if an incarnate devil sat in Peter's 
Chair, he must be obej-ed — within his jurisdiction. 

We believe, however, with the German historian, 
that had Savonarola adopted more temperate meas- 
ures towards the people of Florence, his success 
would have been more lasting. An excitable race, 
lacking depth of purpose, tliey were easily im- 
pressed. When tlie preacher's prophetic declara- 
tions were fulfilled, the}^ liailed him as one sent 
of God ; when his fore])odings failed, they were 
only too ready to denounce him as a false guide. 

Here it may be not amiss to quote the opinions 
of some of the friar's contemporaries. Of INIacliia- 
velli, Cesare Cantii says that, being a man who 
never risked the expression of an opinion contrary 
to that in fashion, he praised Savonarola in the 



130 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

beginning of his career. "He began to ridicule 
the friar only when he himself had developed a 
polity that was directly opposed to the friar's — 
a polity, namely, without God, without Provi- 
dence, without morality, an innate depravity, with- 
out original sin or redemption, by means of which 
he expected to restore Ital}^ not only without the 
Church, but in spite of her." 

Machiavelli's history of Florence, ending with 
the death of Lorenzo, contains nothing about Sa- 
vonarola. In an appendix, however, is published a 
letter from the author to a friend, in which he dis- 
plays his feelings against the friar, whose sermons 
he had listened to. He accuses the preacher of 
fraud and cunning. In one of his " Discourses," 
however, he writes : — 

" The people of Florence are far from considering them- 
selves ignorant and benighted, and yet Brother Girolamo 
Savonarola succeeded in persuading them that he held con- 
verse with God. I will not pretend to judge whether it 
was true or not, for we must speak with all respect of so 
great a man. But I may well say that an immense num- 
ber believed it, without having seen any extraordinary 
manifestations that should make them believe it ; but it 
was the purity of his life, the doctrines he preaclied, and the 
subjects he selected for his discourses, that sufficed to make 
the people have faith in him." 

Elsewhere he says : — 

" In tlie year 1494 Florence had reformed its govern- 
ment with the aid of Brother Girolamo Savonarola, whose 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 131 

writings exhibited so much learning, prudence, and cour- 



" 1 

6^ 



ae-e 



The celebrated Philip de Commines, who knew 
the friar well, speaks of him in the " Memoirs " 

as : — 

" A man famous for his holy life, and whom myself saw 
and communed with in the year of our Lord 1495. . . . 
He led the holiest life that any man could lead, as appeared 
both by his conversation and also by his sermons, wherein 
he preached against all kinds of vice, so that he reformed 
the lives of many in the same city. . . . 

" He told many things W' hich proved true which he could 
not receive from the Council of Florence. And as touching 
the king, and the evils he said should happen to him, they 
came to pass as he prophesied ; for first he told him of the 
dauphin, his son's death, and after of his own, as myself 
can witness, for I have seen the letters he writ thereof to 
the king." 

In the " History of Italy " Guicciardinl, who was 
only sixteen years old when Savonarola mounted 
the scaffold, presents the views of a supporter of 
the Medici. 

" The Pope," according to Guicciardini, " despised him 
[Savonarola], and exercised his spiritual arms more at the 
solicitations of some friars who hated Savonarola than from 

1 In his treatise " The Prince," Machiavelli also refers to Sa- 
vonarola, declaring that he failed simply because he tried to be a 
reformer without the use of material force. This Machiavellian 
principle finds its illustration in Mahomet and Luther; but the 
labors of those who, like Savonarola, " fought within the Hues," 
have always been in ways of peace. 



132 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

his own inclination. But Savonarola, finding that by his 
silence his interests declined, and that the ends for which 
he had preached could not be answered, began to despise 
the Pontifical Orders, and returned publicly again to his 
lormer office, asserting that the censures pronounced against 
him were null, as contrary to the Divine Will and public 
"welfare, and at the same time inveiglied bitterly against 
the Pope and the court of Rome. This occasioned fre- 
quent tumults ; for his enemies, who gained ground every 
day, stirred up the populace, who above all things abhorred 
disobedience to the Pope, and had him reprimanded by 
some in the government for his audaciousness, which tended 
to alienate the Pope's affections from the Florentines at a 
juncture w^hen he was treating with the allies for the resti- 
tution of Pisa. On the other hand, his followers alleged 
in his defence that it was dangerous to admit of an ex- 
ample which would be a precedent for Popes to intrude in 
the affairs of their government. These contentions lasted 
several days, till Alexander, in great wrath, issuing new 
Briefs, and threatening to interdict the city, the magis- 
trates ordered him to desist from preaching. Savonarola 
obeyed, but the Dominican friars of his convent w^ent from 
church to church, preaching the same doctrines, which were 
refuted by the religious of other Orders. These disputes 
were carried on with great heat, and excited animosities 
both in Church and state. 

" Savonarola was afterwards put to the Question,^ but in 
a gentle manner, and his examination and confession were 
by the Magistracy formed into a process, and ordered to be 
published. In this paper he cleared himself of several cal- 
umnies that had been laid to his charge, such as leading a 

1 That is, the torture. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 133 

dissolute life, being avaricious, having kept secret corre- 
spondence with foreign princes. He confessed that those 
events he had foretold were not by Divine Revelation, but 
by his own proper opinion grounded on the doctrine of the 
Holy Scripture which he had profoundly studied ; that what 
he had preached had not proceeded from any malignity, nor 
from any ambitious views of ecclesiastical preferments, but 
from zeal, and in hopes that through his means a general 
council might be assembled in which the corrupt manners 
of the clergy might be reformed, and the condition of the 
Church restored, so as to resemble as near as possible the 
apostolic times, in which laudable attempt, if it had pleased 
God to help his labors, he should have thought himself more 
happy and glorious than if he had acquired the Popedom. 
For the first could not have been procured but by good 
sound doctrine and virtue, and a singular reverence gained 
from all men, whereas the other might be obtained, as it 
often was, by sinister means or good fortune. 

" Savonarola died with great intrepidity, without utter- 
ing a word concerning his guilt or innocence, leaving the 
passions of men unquenched, and their judgment uncertain. 
Some called him an impostor, whilst others affirmed that 
the confession published in his name was either false, or 
that what he had said had been extorted by the Question, a 
frailty w^hich tliey excused, because the Prince of the Apos- 
tles, who was neither im2:)risoned nor forced by torments, 
at the interrogation of handmaids and servants, had denied 
being a disciple of that Master Whose holy doctrine he 
had imbibed, and of Whose many holy miracles he had 
been an eye-witness." 

Without criticism of Guicciardini, whose preju- 
dice will be ap})areiit to the reader, we shall give 



134 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

a notion of the opinions of other contemporaries 
of the Frate, as Mr. Napier reports them : — 

" Nardi, who although an impartial writer was no adherent 
of Savonarola, tells us at the end of his second book, how 
he is compelled from truth and conscience' sake to acknowl- 
edge that a great and noble citizen who had been one of the 
Frate's exandners, and was appointed on account of his in- 
tense hatred, having been subsequently banished to his sdlla, 
was there questioned by the historian himself about Savo- 
narola's confession and process, to which he answered in his 
wife's presence, ' It is true that from the Fra Girolamo's 
confession certain things were omitted, with the best inten- 
tion, and others added.' 

" Giovanni Berlingheri also, who was one of the priors 
for March and April, 1498, is said by Lorenzo Viole, a con- 
temporary writer, to have preserved the original autograph 
confession of Savonarola, which Yiole saw in part, compared 
it with the printed copies then in everybody's hands, and 
finally declared that ' they differed as much as day and 
night.' ' The truth was not written,' he adds, ' in these 
printed documents ; but that only was inserted which they 
required to prove the Frate a wicked man, for the purpose 
of concealing their own injustice who had condemned an 
innocent one.' There were not wanting some worthy peo- 
ple, both before and after Savonarola's death, who endeav- 
ored to persuade Berlingheri to publish this document, but 
in vain ; and even on his death-bed, when his near relative 
Alessandro Pucci and his wife Donna INIaria Sibilla im- 
plored him to give them the manuscript, he answered, 
' Neither to you nor to any person in the world will I show 
it, for my so doing might occasion the death of more than 
forty Florentine citizens, and God forbid that I should 
cause so much evil ; have patience, for it would not be well 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 135 

that I should do this; nay, before I die I wish to cast it 
into the flames and see it burn.' " 

" Another actor in this tragedy, and a most important per- 
sonage, Ser Francesco di Barone, a public notary, commonly 
called at that time ' Ser Ceccone,' who was believed to be 
the suggester and fabricator of the false process, is said to 
have confessed to Lucrezia de' Medici (Salviati), Leo the 
Tenth's sister, ' that Savonarola was a saint of Heaven, but 
that it became necessary to impute crimes to him and feign 
many things in order to secure his condemnation.' " ^ . . . 

" Finally, INIagliabechi, a great authority and nearer our 
own times, exhibited proofs to his friends of the spurious 
process, which, according to Varchi, was subsequently ex- 
punged from the public records by the jjroposto^ Lorenzo 
Ridolfi, as disgraceful, unjust, and contrary to every rule 
of equity." 

Among English writers of recent date, Madden 
deserves notice. In an exhaustive history of 
Savonarola, whom he calls "the intrepid Domini- 
can," and "a great Christian hero," Madden holds 
that the friar " appears to have been raised up by 
Providence at a crisis more terrible and perilous 
perhaps than any that preceded or followed it, to 
cry out against the iniquities that damaged the 
Church, and to combat the enemies within her 
gates, and those that beset her altars and her 
throne. He had to war with all kinds- of treason 
against God, — covert heathenism in the name of 

1 " Florentine History from the Earliest Authentic Records to 
the Accession of Ferdinand III., Grand Duke of Tuscany," by 
Henry Edward Napier, London, 1816-17, vol. iii., pj). 617-620. 



136 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

Platonic philosophy simulating Christian prin- 
ciples ; open disbelief in the government of a su- 
preme power; speculative infidelity of schoolmen, 
secular and clerical, of rhetoricians and wrangling 
theologians ; practical infidelity of churchmen who 
had become simonists and sensualists, enemies to 
truth and purity, and persecutors of just men be- 
lieving in God and fearing His judgments. He 
died in the struggle, and the enemies of truth and 
justice thought they had a signal triumph. But 
liis death only served to send his opinions, apostle- 
like, througliout the civilized world." 

Briefly, in '' Geschichten der Romanischen und 
Germanischen Volker von 1494 bis 1514," ^ and 
most elaborately in the " Historisch-biographischen 
Studien,"2 Leopold von Ranke has narrated the 
story of Savonarola's life. In the later volume he 
describes the rise of the Medici and the political 
variations in Florence, giving many details of the 
political revolution of 1494, and of Savonarola's 
leadership. The character of the new constitution 
introduced by the friar, the subsequent distur- 
bances in Florence, the workings of European poli- 
tics, Savonarola's complications, trial, and deatli, 
are all studiously set forth. To the political aims 
of the Frate he attributes an unusual importance, 
representing him as a partisan before his coming to 
Florence, and as working while there with an in- 

1 Leipzig, 1874; Sainnitliclie Werke, vols, xxxiii., xxxiv. 

2 Leipzig, 1887 ; see pp. 183-332. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 137 

ternational party, to effect, through the aid of the 
French king, the forcible overthrow of Alexander 
VI. However, von Ranke is not unsympathetic. 
From the shorter sketch in the ''Geschichten," we 
extract some passages, fairly presenting the learned 
author's opinions : — 

" Among these rich, influential, educated, and solemn 
people [he had described the people of Florence], a Do- 
minican, Ilieronymus Savonarola of Ferrara, had succeeded 
in making himself universally esteemed. He was, it is 
true, strict with himself and others, a solitary walker, a 
monk by inclination, and a man who also knew how to 
control his harsh voice. He admonished his monasterial 
brethren to give up all their property. He spared no one, 
not one of his fellow-citizens, the Brescians, the Florentines, 
nor his liege lords, the Pope and Lorenzo de' Medici, and all 
this could not help securing him a certain influence. But 
what made him really powerful were, before all else, his 
doctrines and his prophetic gifts." 

" He preached his theory that all true citizens ought to 
participate in the offices of public authority ... to many 
his scheme will appear nothing more nor less than an en- 
larged aristocracy. Savonarola was the head of all the 
enemies of the Italian League and the Pope. He con- 
demned the wealth and the pomp of the clergy, for thereby 
the barrier was broken down which should separate the 
church and the world. . . . God's Word still endured, and 
by no means was one bound to trust in a prelate as much as 
in it. Kay, no one should sit in the seat of Doctrine except 
so long as his works were not prejudicial to the operation of 
the doctrine. Acting in accordance with these principles, 
he invited Charles orally, and the German and the Spanish 



138 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

kings in writing, to undertake the reformation of the 
Church."! 

Alongside of von Ranke we place a Frenchman, 
M. Perrens, who, having studiously reviewed the 
friar's career, in " Jerome Savonarola, his Life, his 
Preaching, and his Times," ventures to express a 
judgment on the man. Appreciating, as he says, 
successively, the statesman, the reformer, the theo- 
logian, the philosopher, the orator, the writer, in 
Savonarola, the puzzled reader asks was he a 
prophet or an impostor? The problem has been 
solved by historians in two extreme ways. On 
one side are those who condemn the Church in 
order to proclaim Savonarola a saint ; on the other, 
those who rob Savonarola of his good name in order 
to protect the men whom he condemned for their 
shortcomings. " We must take," says Perrens, 
"a middle course. Savonarola was neitlier an angel 
nor a devil, neither a saint nor a reprobate, neither 
a prophet nor an impostor — he ivas a man.^^ Per- 
rens then proceeds, at considerable length, to illus- 
trate his conclusion by citing the weaknesses, the 
contradictions, the faults, of Savonarola. He also 
enters into a long discussion to disprove Savona- 
rola's prophetic character. He considers it to have 
been unfortunate for Savonarola that his appear- 
ance on the public stage began at a time when the 



1 Pp. 8.5-92 of " Geschichten der Romanischen und German- 
isclieu Vulker," etc. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 139 

work of moral reform became confounded with the 
question of political reform in Florence, the latter 
impeding the success of the former. Had Savona- 
rola, M. Perrens opines, been a German, had lie 
labored in the field occupied later by Luther, the 
unhappy schism and heresy precipitated by the 
Wittenberg friar would have long been deferred. 

^ The views of clerical Protestant church-histo- 
rians may not be unprofitable, so we turn to the 
well-known Dean Milman, and quote from him at 
some length. 

" ' Savonarola died,' so wrote his admiring biographer, 
'from this cause only, —because he was hated by the 
wicked, beloved by the holy.'i 

" That he died because he was a preacher of righteousness, 
in an age and in a Church at the very depths of unright- 
eousness, who will deny? His absolutely blameless moral 
character, his wonderful abilities, his command of all the 
knowledge of his time, his power of communicating his own 
holiness to others, even his rigid authority as regards the 
great doctrines of his Church, who will impeacli ? Let any 
one read in Italian, and he will not be unrewarded, the 
'Trionfo della Croce,' and determine this point for him- 
self. His other practical works, as on the simpleness of the 
Christian life, if not of equal excellence, are as faultless and 
devout. 

" We have not disguised what, from our point of view, 
seems to detract from the grandeur, the heroic, the saintly' 
the true Christian grandeur of Fra Girolamo. It was a 

1 " Una haec perditionis caussa Hieronymo, displicuisse nequis- 
simis, placuissesanctissimis." — Pico MiruiuL, iu Praefat. 



140 JEROME SAVOyABOLA. 

monkish reformation which he endeavored to "work, and 
therefore a reformation which could not liave satisfied the 
expanding mind of man. But it was the monkish reforma- 
tion of a Church which still professed to believe monasti- 
cism to be the perfection of Christianity, a higher gospel 
than that of Christ. We have touched on his extravairances 
of religious passion, the rigor of his puritan asceticism. 
But not only was he an Italian, he was of a church in which, 
as witness the lives of half the saints (look especially to St. 
Francis), those extravagances had been held up as the very 
consummation of holiness. If he was a religious dema- 
gogue, and mingled too much in secular aifairs, how many, 
not of the worst only, but of the best, in the history of his 
Church would disdain to elude the imputation ! Above all 
he did not discern the dim line which distinguishes the 
mission of a preacher of righteousness from that of a 
prophet of the future ; he did not, in his ecstatic fervor of 
zeal, discriminate between the ordinary and the extraordi- 
nary gifts of divine grace ; yet his Church believed herself 
to be endowed with a perpetual gift of miracle, with a 
perpetual, if more rarely exercised, gift of prophecy. How 
many who had prophesied smooth things of her, or even 
harsh things, had been canonized I It was not because 
they were untrue that Savonarola's predictions were pre- 
sumptuous, impious, but because they were unwelcome. 
Had Charles the Eighth descended the Alps on the Pope's 
side, Girolamo's prediction had been a revelation from 
Heaven. We may believe the whole to have been halluci- 
nation, part of a fond perversion of unmeaning words by his 
partisans, part merely human sagacity, — some fortunate 
guesses or prophecies which wrought their own accomplish- 
jxient, — but all their real criminality to Rome was their hos- 
tility to Rome. This was felt in his own day (the reaction 
was almost immediate) ; and it has been felt by the better 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 141 

part of the Roman Catliolic Clmrch at all times. There 
has been a strong demand for that highest homage to man, 
his canonization. It was said to have been contemplated 
even by Julius II. ; if we are to trust Dr. Madden it has been 
thought of in our own time. How far it would tax theo- 
logical subtlety to reconcile the excommunication, the mur- 
der, of Savonarola (we can use no milder term) by one 
infallible Tope, with his sanctification by another, is no 
concern of ours. 

" But Italy, Rome, the Church, repudiated the reformation, 
the more congenial and less violent reformation of Savona- 
rola. A wider, more complete reformation — a reformation 
on different principles — became more and more necessary 
and inevitable. It was only by the reaction of the more 
formidable revolution of the North, that the South at length 
conformed to some of the views of the reformer of Ferrara." 
[Here follows a little eulogy of Luther.] 

Milman notes afterward that Savonarola's prom- 
ise regarding the conversion of the Turks was not 
realized, and adds : — 

" His political vaticinations were at least as sadly untrue ; 
such as the promise to Florence of an age of unexampled 
prosperity after her tribulations." 

As to Savonarola's death he says : — 

" He died full of confidence in his own innocence, firm, 
calm, without the least acknowledgment of guilt, with no 
word of remonstrance against the cruelty of his enemies, 
at peace with himself, in perfect charity with all." 

Dean Milman's views a reader may desire to 
compare with the Rev. Mr. Creighton's. While 



142 JEROME SAVOyABOLA 

vicar of Embleton, this clever writer began a " His- 
tory of the Papacy during the Reformation." As 
each new volume appeared, of the six he has pub- 
lished, the author rose at least one step liigher in 
the ministry, or the hierarchy, of the Established 
Church of England. 

" Savonarola's fate [says Mr. Creighton elegantly] is a 
type of the dangers Avhicli beset a noble soul drawn by its 
Christian zeal into conflict with the world. More and 
more he was driven to fight the Lord's battle with carnal 
weapons, till the prophet and statesman became inextricably 
entangled, and the message of the new life was interwoven 
with the political attitude of the Florentine Republic. 
Little by little, he was driven into the open sea, till his 
frail bark was swallowed by the tempest. He encouraged 
Florence to adhere to an untenable position till all who 
wished to bring Florence into union with Italian aspira- 
tions were driven to conspire for his downfall. 

" This great tragic interest of the lofty soul, overborne in 
its struggle against the world, has made Savonarola a favo- 
rite character for biography, romance, and devotional liter- 
ature. But the historical importance of Savonarola goes 
deeper than the greatness of his political importance. Sa- 
vonarola made a last attempt to bring the new learning 
into harmony with the Christian life. He strove to inspire 
the Florence of Lorenzo, Ficino, and Pico with the con- 
sciousness of a great spiritual mission to the world. He 
aimed at setting up a commonwealth of which Chi'ist was 
the only king : animated by the zeal of a reformed church, 
the state was to guide men's aspirations towards a regene- 
rate life. The individual force and passion of Savonarola 
was the offspring of the Renaissance, but it had to force 



I 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 143 

its way to expression through the fetters of scholasticism. 
Savonarola's sermons present a strong contrast of the for- 
cible utterance of personal opinion with the trivialities of 
an artificial method of exposition. He palpitates with the 
desire to reconcile conflicting tendencies and enter into a 
larger world. He falls back upon the mysterious utterances 
of prophecy to point men's eyes to a larger future than he 
was able to define. His words are now vague to our ears, 
his political plans are seen to be dreams, his prophetic 
claims a delusion. But his character lives and is powerful 
as of one who strove to restore the harmony of man's dis- 
tracted life. 

" It is unjust to Alexander VI. to represent him as the 
chief author of Savonarola's ruin ; but he gave his sanction at 
the last to the schemes of Savonarola's foes. It is needless 
to discuss the technical points at issue between Savonarola 
and the Pope ; it is enough that the papal policy in Italy 
demanded the destruction of a noble effort to make Chris- 
tianity the animating principle of life. Even a Pope so 
purely secular as Alexander VI. is said in latter years to 
have regretted Savonarola's death. Julius II. ordered 
Raffaelle to place him among the doctors of the Church in 
the great fresco of the ' Disputa,' and his claims to canon- 
ization were more than once discussed. The Church evi- 
dently grieved over his loss when he was gone, when polit- 
ical difficulties had passed away, and the memory of the 
fervent preacher of righteousness alone remained." ^ 

As an illustration of the spirit animating Do- 
minican historians, we present to our readers a 
few extracts embodying the judgment of several 
of the most distinguished members of the Order. 



1 " 



History of the Papacy," vol. Hi., pp. 247, 248. 



144 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

Natalis Alexander, the celebrated Church his- 
torian, describes Savonarola as '*a most fei'vent 
preacher, famous by the sanctity of his life, his doc- 
trine, the gift of prophecies and miracles, who was 
hurried to his death by judges resolved on his de- 
struction before they sat for his trial." The writer 
denounces the execution of Savonarola as most 
iniquitous. 

Touron writes that " amongst the apostolic men 
in whose lives we have seen realized all that our 
Lord foretold to his first disciples, the famous Je- 
rome Savonarola holds high rank." After enumer- 
ating his great virtues and extraordinary labors, 
Touron continues, " The death of this truly great 
man was another proof that he had spoken by the 
Spirit of God." 

From Marchese, who was a patient student of 
every phase of the Frate's life, we quote freely : — 

" The name of Savonarola arises from the infamy of the 
scaffold without injury ; it will ever shine ; it will be re- 
membered with affection and reverence by Italians while 
religion and liberty remain dear to them. He was always 
true to himself in the innocence of his life, in the love of 
truth, in his charity towards mankind. It must be con- 
ceded that if he erred in the choice of means to attain his 
end, he had not, as some claim, an ambition for worldly 
power, or for any less noble purpose ; his object was the 
elevation of a degraded generation to the perfection of 
Christianity." 

" No one, however, though among his most furious ene- 
mies, has ever dared to deny to him innocence and aus- 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 145 

terity of life, together with much and varied learning. 
Certainly a most remarkable man he was, and deserving of 
honor, not only by his native Ferrara, but by Italy and the 
world. The pagans would have ranked him with Cato, and 
we may rank him with Athanasius the Great and Gregory 
VII. For, as Athanasius, though alone and unarmed, faced 
and conquered in his day Arius and his unusually powerful 
sect, and as Gregory scourged simony and the concubinage 
of the clergy, so Friar Girolamo, as long as he liv^ed, fought 
reviving paganism, 

" Among those of our times (the moderns) I find no one 
who resembles him so much as Daniel O'Connell, in com- 
mon with whom he deserves praise for having tied in a 
sisterly knot true religion and true liberty. To some his 
social reform appears to be Utopian ; but we should cer- 
tainly bless a Utopia designed to make men virtuous and 
happy. 

<< During four centuries Europe has been engaged in a 
bloody battle to obtain a liberty which flies every hour be- 
fore her; and when she believes she has reached it, she finds 
within her embrace only a painted strumpet, — License. 
Savonarola loudly proclaimed that there could be no real 
liberty without religion, and the guaranty of its rights con- 
sisted in the fulfilment of certain obligations. His warn- 
ings were derided ; but we do not fear to affirm that Europe 
will never enjoy peace until these two truths are ingrafted 
on modern civilization. To him who has not studied the 
interior history of those rugged and sensual times, Savona- 
rola's impetuosity may seem supreme folly. But the holy 
Pontiff Adrian was not slow in amply justifying him, who 
in the Diet of Niiremberg desired the Nuntio Ceregato 
to confess freely before all the German princes that the 
Pope knew that the Lutheran heresy was an infliction from 
God especially for the faults of the priests and prelates, and 



146 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

therefore like unto that, as noted by Chrj'sostom. which 
Christ manifested in Jerusalem. The scourging began in 
the Temple, as He wished first to cure the head, rather than 
the members, of the infirm body. Such having been the 
gravity of the malady, the excessive zeal of Savonarola 
urged him beyond bounds of propriety in mode and speech, 
in which, nevertheless, he appears almost like the illustri- 
ous Bishop of Carthage, St. Cyprian, who with an equal 
impetus of inconsiderate zeal, and with a want of reason 
and an equal bitterness, publicly assailed the holy Pontiff 
St. Stephen ; but who, as St. Augustine remarks, did not 
hesitate to cancel with his blood the fault that sprang 
rather from an error of the intellect than from a guilty 
desire. Thus he did not lose the veneration of the faithful 
and of the Apostolic See, but he is deservedly held to be 
one of the most splendid lights of Christianity. Such a 
lot fell to Savonarola, who, placed amid the most difficult 
surroundings, gave heed to imprudent councils on the ref- 
ormation of the Church; but his error was the result of 
sincere zeal, and was not due to ambition or to worldly 
cupidity.' 

Echard begins his comments on Savonarola by 
referring to the medals struck at Rome in 1510, 
in honor of the Prior of St. Mark's, and bear- 
ing the inscription, "Blessed Martyr and Doctor." 
The Holy See did not prohibit the sale or distri- 
bution of these medals. " And deservedly," adds 
Echard, " does Savonarola receive these titles of 
honor ; for his blameless life was spent in most 
fervent zeal and love of God, for the Avelfare of 
souls, and their advancement in virtue. Most 
wickedly rewarding this great man, ungrateful 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 147 

Florence brought him to the gibbet and the stake. 
By this they thought to attach infamy to his name ; 
on the contrary, however, it has become more illus- 
trious with advancing time. Not only have the 
books which he published during his active labors 
been preserved and further disseminated, but 
those works Avhich he composed when in prison 
are also issued for the relish and advantage of all 
who read them." Echard maintains that the trial 
of Savonarola was a mockery of justice, that the 
Florentines, finding no cause, either civil or eccle- 
siastical, for which they could condemn him, put 
him to death for political reasons only, covering 
these under false charges of heresy and of pro- 
phetical imposture. 

To these varying estimates of the illustrious 
Ferrarese, expressed at different periods, by men 
wide apart in their calling and in their creed, it 
pleases us to add the judgment of a mind so acute 
and so religious as that of Cardinal John Henry 
Newman. In his sermon on the Mission of St. 
Philip, Cardinal Newman depicts Savonarola as " a 
true son of St. Dominic in energy, in severity of 
life, in contempt of merely secular learning ; a 
forerunner of St. Pius the Fifth in boldness, in 
resoluteness, in zeal for the honor of the house of 
God, and for the restoration of holy discipline. 
He felt his spirit stirred up within him, like an- 
other Paul, when he came to that beautiful home 
of genius and philosophy ; for he found Florence 



148 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

like another Athens, wholly given to idolatry. He 
groaned within him, and was troubled, and refused 
consolation, when he beheld a Christian court and 
people priding itself on its material greatness, its 
intellectual gifts, and its social refinements, while 
it abandoned itself to luxury, to feast and song and 
revel, to fine shows and splendid apparel, to an 
impure poetry, to a depraved and sensual charac- 
ter of art, to heathen speculations, and to forbidden, 
superstitious practices. His vehement spirit could 
not be restrained, and got the better of him. He 
burst into a whirlwind of indignation and invective, 
whicb for the moment certainly did a great deal 
more than St. Paul was able to do at the Areopa- 
gus. St. Paul only made one or two converts 
there, and departed ; whereas Savonarola had great 
immediate success, frightened and abashed the 
offenders, rallied around him the better disposed, 
and elicited and developed whatever there was of 
piety, whether in the multitude or in the upper 
class. It was the truth of his cause, the earnest- 
ness of his convictions, the singleness of his aims, 
the impartiality of his censures, the intrepidity of 
his menaces, Avhich constituted the secret of his 



success. 



" 1 



1 The student may further consult Muratori's " Annals," Sis- 
mondi's " Italian Republics," the work of Dr. Clark, or Mr. J. S. 
Harford's " Life of Michael Angelo Buouarotti." 




JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 149 



11. 

THU TRUE CHARACTER OF THE FRIAR. 

Having placed before our readers the esti- 
mates of Savonarola formed by various writers, 
Catholic and non-Catholic, at different periods, 
we may briefly present the true character of the 
friar.^ He was a man of " most rare virtues. He 

1 Savonarola's full baptismal name was Jerome Mary Francis 
Matthew. A description of his personal appearance will be of 
interest to our readers. From the metrical " Cedrus Libani " by 
F. Benedict, we render one stanza literally: — 

" He was small of body, but very healthy, 
His limbs were rather delicate, 
His holy hand seemed transparent, 
Ever joyous, never disturbed, 
His glance was quick, penetrating, 
His expression was pleasing, his eye beautiful, 
His hair was wavy and black, 
His mouth Avas large, his nose arched ; 
When his soul lighted up his face 
It shone with such beauty and grace. 
That he seemed to have come from Heaven." 

From this description, and from the accounts left by Burlamacchi 
and Pico della Mirandola, we may state that Savonarola was of 
naiddle height and slight figure, graceful in movements, refined 
in his manners, of a nervous temi)erament, a believer in the doc- 
trine of " cleanliness next to godliness." He had an orator's mouth, 
and a nose such as belongs to all great men. His general expres- 
sion was one of gravity, meditation on serious things having left 
its indelible traces. His likeness proclaims a "homely" man; 



150 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

Avas benignant and pleasant with all, humble and 
gentle with his novices, of great affability. His 
agreeable manners gave joy and gladness to others. 
Those who once came to know him felt the strong- 
est desire and eagerness for his company ; and 
when he discoursed on spiritual things, no one who 
heard him would withdraw from his presence."^ 

He was a man of frequent prayer, of deep medi- 
tation, of constant study of Holy Writ. Knowing 
the Bible thoroughly, he made it the well-spring 
of his spiritual instructions, and even applied it 
to political affairs by way of interpretation and 
adaptation of figures. Some of the copies of the 
inspired Book which he read and annotated are 
still preserved. They bear striking testimony to 
his great learning, wonderful spiritualit}^ and in- 
tense Catholicism. Not a single text which Luther 
or his followers distorted from the hitherto accepted 
meaning received from Savonarola aught but the 
most faithfully Catholic comment. Savonarola 
professed and practised, as a true Dominican, a 
most tender devotion to our Lady. He was a dis- 
ciple of the Cross, on whom the seal of suffering 

but nobility of character, gentleness united with firmness, a cer- 
tain melancholy sweetness, are clearly outlined. Various portraits 
of Savonarola are in existence, among them one on canvas by Fra 
Bartolommeo in the Academy of Fine Arts, Florence ; a fresco in 
Savonarola's cell, also by Fra Bartolommeo; a third, an intaglio, 
by the celebrated engraver on gems, Giovanni della Corniola, now 
in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Another cameo by the same artist 
was in the jiossession of the Jesuits at Rome when Marchese wrote. 
1 Burlamacchi. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 151 

had been early set.^ His love for our Lord in the 
Holy Eucharist was a marked characteristic of his 
spiritual life. In the chapel he was often known 
to spend hours in prayer, rapt at times as if in 
ecstasy ; a radiant flood of light was often visible 
to those who witnessed his fervor. While celebrat- 
ing Mass his face was illumined, as with the fire of 
his love, and in consequence of this prodigy he was 
accustomed to seek the privacy of such altars as 
hid him from all save his attendant. 

Plis religious life was one of loyal observance of 
vows and rules. Truly detached from the world, 
single in his aims, pure in his motives, a model of 
simplicity, which neither learning nor honors ever 
disturbed, an example of humility, fortified by true 
courage accompanied by an utter disregrd of a hu- 
man respect, he wore his white habit in honor to 
the end. As a superior he lived among the mem- 
bers of his community a model of every virtue, a 
tender father watching over his beloved children 
with unfailing care.^ His priesthood was one sus- 

1 We cannot state whether Savonarola knew of the prophecies 
alleged to have been made concerning him which we find recorded 
in Burlamacchi. We refer especially to one by a canon of the 
Duomo, Prospero Petti, who was explicit in his declaration as to 
a Dominican who was destined to suffer and die for ungrateful 
Florence. The report and preservation of such prophecies are at 
least an evidence of the exalted state of feeling prevailing among 
Savonarola's followers. 

2 Burlamacchi has left a picture of the family life of St. Mark's 
community under the direction of Savonarola that reveals the 
great man in the true light of religious simjilicity : — 

" After the siesta, the brethren would gather around the Father, 



152 JEBOME SAVONAROLA. 

tained, brave, generous effort to bring souls to 
God. Enjoying an extraordinary insight into the 
human heart, his influence as a confessor, director, 
or spiritual guide, was remarkable. 

As a preacher, he ranks among the greatest of 
all time. Judged by his success he may be con- 
sidered a prince among orators. Sustained by un- 
impeachable honesty, by a devotion that even his 
enemies could not deny, by a learning that the 
scholars of the day were compelled to admire, fired 
by the conviction of a divine mission, a conviction 
in which his hearers shared unquestioningl}^^ his 
eloquence had a matchless influence, day after 

in cheerfulness and eagerness, to bear some passage of Holy Writ 
explained. While they walked in the garden he would comment 
on the sacred text, thus mingling innocent recreation with pious 
meditation. Sometimes he would take the life of a saint for the 
subject of his discourse ; again they would sing joyous hymns. 
At other times he would bid them dance, accompanying them by 
the humming of an ajJi^ropriate air. A practice often followed 
was that of robing a young novice to represent the Divine Child. 
Then they would sit around him, giving, as to the beloved Jesus, 
their hearts, and asking graces for themselves and others." An- 
other picture, beautiful and touching, is that of the Father sur- 
rounded by his " angels," the dear young boys whom he loved to 
train for the heavenly life, going abroad in the fields, and having 
indulged in that godly hilarity which has ever been a virtue with 
religious, resting briefly in the pleasant shade of the trees. On 
one of these occasions he entertained the brethren by taking from 
the tender branches their pith, and deftly and artistically forming 
it into little doves which he distributed among his angels as sym- 
bols of their innocence and piirity. On such features, the inner 
life of Savonarola, it would be delightful to dwell, for the world 
knows him chiefly as the preacher, the reformer, the man mighty 
in word, and strong in the battle for right. 

1 The claim that an angel was at times seen near him when ho 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 153 

day, during the years he preached, swaying intel- 
lect and heart alike, ruling as from a throne the 
young and the old, men even more notably than 
women, and exercising what has not inaptly been 
termed a "heavenly despotism" over a city in 
which vice and irreligion had formerly established 
a stronghold.^ 

preached, and again a dove, we mention as a proof of the enthusi- 
astic reverence of his followers, without vouching for its truth. 

1 "As a political orator he was scarcely inferior to Demosthe- 
nes and Cicero. These two appeared when Greece and Rome 
were corrupted and divided, their liberty menaced by insidious 
and powerful enemies. They defended and sustained their coun- 
try by the power of their eloquence. The wealth, the arms, the 
subtlety of Philip of Macedon had no more stubborn opponent 
than the eloquence of Demosthenes inspired by patriotism. In 
the same way Piero de' Medici vainly attempted with gold, 
arms, and snares, to oppress his country, once the eloquence of 
Savonarola fired the hearts of the Florentines with love for reli- 
gion and liberty. Regarding the conspiracy of Bernardo del Nero, 
Savonarola resembles Cicero, who discovered and punished the 
wicked plots of Catiline and of his abandoned satellites. Savona- 
rola, if not with arms, certainly with the word, preserved Florence 
for a long time from the conspiracies of the Medici and the Com- 
pagnacci. There was no lack of such plotters against liberty. 
As Cicero chastised the rapine of Verres and the gilded vices of 
Vatinius and of Crassus, so Friar Girolamo scourged those of the 
Sforzas, the Medici, and of the degenerate clergy. Savonarola 
differed from Demosthenes in this: The Greek orator bound in a 
confederation all the cities of Greece, opposing them to the Mace- 
donian armies; whereas Girolamo dissuaded the Florentines from 
the League, which alone could debar the entrance to the enemies 
of Italy, preferring rather the safety of Florence than the uncer- 
tain results of the League. Demosthenes, being condemned to 
banishment and death, voluntarily shortened his days with poi- 
son. Cicero, however, was a victim more like the friar. As 
Caesar Octavius, who was loved by Cicero, bought the friendship 
of Marc Antony, thus sacrificing his own benefactor, so the 



154 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

As a prophet Savonarola's place cannot be de- 
termined with accuracy. Many of his predictions 
were fulfilled. In what spirit he made all of these 
we cannot decide, whether as a keen reader of the 
times, a close student of events, or as a man directly 
under the divine influence ; but we readily under- 
stand how so many who heard him, and so many 
who have only read his words, should believe that 
he enjoyed a special heavenly assistance. The nat- 
ural enthusiasm of his disposition, the impetuosity 
of a zeal, that perhaps needed, at times, the rein of 
greater caution, the warmth of his splendid imagi- 
nation fired to a hot glow by meditation, by con- 
templation of the Apocalyptic prophecies and the 
books of the Old Testament, may have led him to 
make applications, especially to Florence, in a 
manner not altogether undeserving of adverse 
criticism. But allow^ing for all these probabili- 
ties, one may be tempted to hold that, occasionally, 
he was granted an extraordinary light. 

As a politician Savonarola has been most se- 
verely censured, though not always with reason. 
He deserves no condemnation for loving true lib- 
erty, the liberty of Christianity ; nor for desiring 
that this spirit of liberty should influence the do- 
Florentine politicians, thinking to gratify Alexander the Sixth, 
sacrificed Savonarola. I shall not attempt a further comparison 
between the Greek and Roman orators and Savonarola. I shall 
only say that nature probably endowed Savonarola with elo- 
quence as great as that with which she enriched Demosthenes or 
Cicero." — Father Makchese, O. P. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 155 

main of civil governineiit ; nor for attempting to 
reform the citizens of Florence morally, thus assur- 
ing the political welfare of the state. His ideal, 
originally, was beautiful : to build up a kingdom 
of love, mercy, and peace ; and this ideal he pre- 
sented to the people continually. Thanks to the 
friar, Jesus Christ was King of Florence during 
two years at least; King over all in name, and 
over many in truth. " Why," says Villari, " should 
Savonarola be robbed of his fame as a statesman, 
when we behold n people called back to life, as it 
were, by his breath, and see that the government 
he framed is tlie admiration of all writers, both in 
old times and new ? " ^ 

Around this wonderful man there gathered 
three groups of supporters, — one filled with deep 
conviction and holiest purpose, and to the indis- 
cretion of some of whom, no doubt, a portion of 
Savonarola's troubles may be imputed; another 
that felt, in a superficial way, the religious influ- 
ence of the preacher; and a third whose onl}^ 
motive was political ambition, or sordid gain. 
However much we admire Savonarola, we cannot 
be blind to his mistakes and defects. The selfish 
and imprudent advice and encouragement that he 

1 "Savonarola was no demaj^ogue," writes Dinwiddie. "He 
was as much alive to the evils of an unguarded democracy as he 
was to those of an oligai'chy or an absolute niojiarchy; and his 
great design was to secui-e the establishment of a just, well-or- 
dered and stable government, which should promote both the 
earthly and the spiritual welfare of the community." 



156 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

too freely accepted from this third class of sup- 
porters, misled him. Unconsciously he became an 
active politician, thus assuming a role seldom, if 
ever, becoming to a cleric. As a preacher, occu- 
pying a lofty position, expounding principles of 
government, even though his plan was Utopian, 
condemning vice among public men especially, 
and pleading for the reign of justice and of mo- 
rality, his position was dignified, sound, and sure.^ 

1 Some notion of his teaching may be gained from the follow- 
ing extracts: — 

" If you have heard it said that states are not governed with 
Pater Nosters (a remark attributed to Cosimo de' Medici), remem- 
ber that this is the theory of tyrants, of men who are the enemies 
of God, and of tlie common weal, — a theory devised to oppress, and 
not to elevate and free the state. On the contrary, if you would 
have a good government, you must return to God. If it were 
not so, I should certainly not trouble myself about the state." 

" O my people! " he exclaims, " you know that I have ncA'er 
wished to enter into the affairs of the state; think you that I 
should do so now if I did not see that it was necessary for the 
safety of men's souls? You would not believe, but now you see, 
that my words are all proved true; that they are not mine, but 
that they come from the Lord. Give ear, then, to one who seeks 
only your salvation. Purify your hearts, give heed to the common 
good, forget private interests; and if you thus reform joiiv city in 
this disposition, it will be more glorious than it has ever before 
been. 

" What have you given me for trying to govern you ? Where 
are the presents you have sent me? O Friar, you say, you have 
thousands of ducats! If any one says so, he does not speak the 
truth ; I have nothing, and I want nothing. It is you who want 
to be first (referring to the aristocratic obstructors of the pro- 
posed constitution), and that is your reason for disliking the coun- 
cil. He who wants to be first seeks to overthrow the government 
of the whole people; he will have no magistrates nominated with- 
out his permission; he must be consulted about everything, even 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 157 

Once, however, thiit ho sided with a political fac- 
tion, he ran risks, — the risk of envies, jealousies, 
calumnies, and the common risk that all simple 
men run, the risk of base ingratitude, the risk of 
being sacrificed by greedy fellows who no longer 

to the appointment of a priest to the Church of Santa Reparata 
[the patron saint of Florence]. For my part, I endeavor to main- 
tain the council.' Accuse me no more, then, of wanting to rule 
your city. Christ alone, I tell you, is your King! " 

How admirable is the following: — 

" Well, Florence, God is willing to satisfy thee, and to give thee 
a Head, a King, to govern thee. This King is Christ. The Lord 
will govern thee Himself if thou wilt consent, O Florence! 
Suffer thyself to be guided by Him. Do not act as did the Jews 
when they required a king of Samuel. God said to Samuel, 
* Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto 
thee ; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me, 
that I should not reign over them.' O Florence, do not imitate 
this people! Take Christ for thy Master, and remain subject to 
His law. 

"Magistrates," he says, "it is to you that I address myself. 
Put down these vices, destroy these sins, punish this horrid pas- 
sion which is against nature. And not merely by a private fine, 
but in public, that all Italy may know it. Expose all the courte- 
sans in a public place, and send them off to the noise of trumpets. 
But you say, O Father! there are so many of them that this would 
be to upset the whole city. "Well, then begin with one, then go 
on to the rest; and if you cannot give them chastity, you can at 
least teach them decency. 

" Punish gamblers; for be well assured gambling still goes on. 
Give orders, signers, that no one shall play in the streets at great 
games or small. Have the tongues of blasphemers pierced. St. 
Louis, King of France, had the lips of the blasphemer cauterized, 
and said, ' I should have been happy to have as much done to 
myself, if I could at such a price have my kingdom cleared of 
such offendei's.' Put down dancing, too, for this is not a time 
to dance. Prohibit balls in town and country." He refers here to 
the penitential season. The playing he would interdict was not 
of pastime, but of gambling. 



158 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

accounted him useful. And indeed such was the 
Frate's painful experience. Seeing him in the 
pulpit, honored, powerful, a master, who would 
have dreamed of seeing him on a scaffold, ne- 
glected, despised, helpless.^ 

1 The esteem in which the Prior of St. Mark's was held in 
his own convent, may be measured by the remarkable fact, noted 
by Bzovius, that, of the eighty novices tliere at the date of his 
execution, not one returned to the world, nor did one go over to 
the Roman, or to the Lombard, province. 

Among his most bitter opponents, more than one was touched 
by remorse after the Frate's death. Touron tells us that Fra 
Mariano, repenting his enmity, publicly acknowledged his error, 
stating that, of his own knowledge, Savanarola was a man of 
extraordinary virtue and the recipient of rare heavenly favors. 

Lodovico the Moor, according to Bzovius, acknowledged, dur- 
ing his imprisonment in France, that Savonarola had been grossly 
calumniated, in order that his ruin might be more surely effected. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 159 



III. 

HIS INFLUENCE ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION, 
LITERATURE, AND ART. 

On education, literature, and art the influence 
of Savonarola was mighty, truly beneficial, and 
pre-eminently Catholic ; yet in the " Introduction 
to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Six- 
teenth, and Seventeenth Centuries," Hallam does 
not even mention the name of this great man ! 
However, there is no lack of authorities. 

From the splendid work of M. Rio, "Du Van- 
dalisme et du Catholicisme dans I'Art," we shall 
make a few extracts. The name of this author, 
who was a stanch Catholic of La Vendee, and a 
professor of history in the Royal College of Louis 
the Great, is well known to scholars. This distin- 
guished Frenchman, whom Montalembert congrat- 
ulated for having " reconquered for the Church the 
glory and genius of Savonarola," devoted a consid- 
erable portion of his great book on Vandalism and 
Catholicism in Art to a vindication of the illustri- 
ous Prior of St. Mark's. M. Rio says : " Not to 
recognize in Savonarola the powerful dialectician, 
the accomplished orator, the profound theologian, 
the bold and far-reaching genius, the universal 



160 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

philosopher, or rather the competent judge of all 
the schools and systems of philosophy, would be 
giving the lie with too much effrontery to history 
and to his contemporaries." The man thus glo- 
riously endowed, whose sentiments on the true, the 
good, the beautiful, are scattered as gems through 
his discourses, proclaiming him at once poet and 
artist, was also crowned with virtues that were the 
most precious fruits of a truly religious life. With 
this splendid equipment, Savonarola stood forth 
as the champion of the Christian school. Christian 
literature, Christian art. 

"Nothing less," again we quote M. Rio, "than 
supernatural assistance was required to purify all 
that paganism had defiled ; for there was not a 
single branch of the sciences or of the arts, not a 
single faculty of the human mind, that had escaped 
the contagion. By dint of prostrating themselves 
before this ancient idol, men had come, at last, to 
be ashamed of the ignominy of the Cross ; and 
Burlamacchi tells us that Savonarola found Flor- 
ence full of those who, while adorned by noble 
birth and genius, and rich in the treasures of hu- 
man wisdom, had not only lost their faith, but even 
derided those who kept it, and still more, those 
who defended it. There were artists of the high- 
est grade who declared boldly that they had never 
had the faith ; and amongst those who kept more 
within bounds to avoid scandal, the profession of 
Christianity was confined most frequently to some 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 161 

external observances. The teacliers who had tlie 
charge of public education fed the minds of the 
youth, for the most part, only with a poisoned diet, 
systematically turning their admiration towards 
the fables of the Greek mythologies, or the heroes 
of the ancient republics, and not permitting them 
even to suspect that Christianity had her heroes 
too Avho had surpassed them all." 

This is a sad, a humiliating picture, but it is 
only a hint, a suggestion. In general terms M. 
Rio describes the condition of affairs confronting 
the great preacher and teacher, but he does not go 
into details. Contemporary chronicles assure us 
that the craze of the revival of letters so possessed 
teachers and parents in the second half of the fif- 
teenth century that paganism's worst *' literature " 
Avas set before the little ones, — the licentious 
verses of Tibullus, Catullus, and Ovid, besides 
certain eclectic compilations that were the very 
refuse of heathen filth. 

These abominable methods, followed in what 
we would call primary and grammar schools, were 
developed in philosophy and even in theology, as 
taught in the universities. The shadow of pagan- 
ism rested on the holiest treasures of Catholic in- 
tellectual life. As we have already remarked, the 
Gospels were Platonized. The terminology of some 
writers, even ecclesiastics, was so blasphemously 
degraded that they spoke of nuns as Vestales, ves- 
tals ; of the Blessed Virgin as Diva^ the goddess ; 



162 JEROME SAVONAJiOLA. 

of our Blessed Lord as Minerva springing from the 
head of Jupiter, etc. 

It was against this flood-tide of iniquity that 
Savonarola put forth his splendid strength. With 
an utter disregard of human respect, he fearlessly 
arraigned false teachers occupying places high or 
low. He thought tenderl}^ and anxiously for the 
children, on whom he rested his hopes, and for 
whom he pleaded with the parents. His sermons 
also abound in passages addressed directly to the 
little ones, in which his marvellous power is won- 
derfully displaj^ed. The duties of father and 
mother in the education of their children he dis- 
cussed with great earnestness and clearness. A 
friend of true classical scholarship, he deprecated 
only the vile, the degrading. He saw beyond mere 
form ; and though he would not exalt the less per- 
fect Latin or Greek of the Fathers as contrasted 
with the Pagan writers of the golden ages of antiq- 
uity, lie eloquentl}' maintained that substance and 
truth must not be forgotten.^ Thus, while approv- 
ing the polish which comes of classic finish, he 
strenuously insisted on the solid culture which only 



1 " It is well known," says Symonds, " that Savonarola's objec- 
tion to classical culture was based upon his perception of its world- 
liness." And in confirmation of Savonarola's view as to the Pagan 
tendencies of his time, Symonds quotes a passage from Erasmus, 
who expressed his fear that the culture of the Renaissance period 
would be the occasion of a revival of paganism among those who 
held to Christ only in name, their spirit being with the heathen. 
Melauchthou was of the same opinion. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 16S 

truth can generate ; and so lie demanded that with 
Homer and Virgil and Cicero, the Christian fathers, 
a St. Jerome, a St. Ambrose, and a St. Augustine, 
should be studied. He would balance the lessons 
of Plutarch's great men by the inspiring story of 
Christian heroism and sanctity in every walk of 
life. The evil which Savonarola combated so ener- 
geticallj^ and for a time so successfully, in the 
lower schools, was of monstrous growth in the 
academies and universities. Into the cloisters, too, 
this spirit had penetrated, and even some members 
of his own community had not entirely escaped the 
tendencies of the times. The power of the pulpit 
had not been uniformly used for Christian educa- 
tion ; rather were many of the clergy indifferent to 
it, because they aspired to be classical according to 
the fashion. 

Can we wonder that at such a time and under 
such conditions literature was corrupt in its sub- 
stance and influence, and that artists were wanting 
in faith ? Must we not deplore the downward trend 
of morals, and even of faith, among the youth grad- 
uated from such schools, and whose subsequent 
intellectual life was determined and moulded, to 
a great extent, by the lectures, books, paintings, 
sculptures, that were the productions of a neo- 
pagan culture ? Assuredly Christian taste was 
vitiated ; Catholic instincts suffered grievously ; 
the sanctuary of the home was defiled, and the 
house of God profaned. 



164 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

It needed a man of splendid courage, of heroic 
virtue, to attack the monstrous evil. Savonarola 
did not hesitate. Poet, scholar, and lover of the 
arts, the calumnious shafts of his enemies — the 
enemies of virtue and faith — fall harmless, though 
rained against him in a very shower by the Pagans 
of his own day, and by the bigots of succeeding 
times. ^ True history absolves from all taint of 
iconoclasra the noble friar who stood alone, while 
Italy idly beheld Jiis dauntless struggle against the 
multitude, " to re-establish the reign of Jesus Christ 
in the hearts and souls of the people ; to enlarge 
and extend the blessings of redemption to all the 
human faculties, and to all their operations. The 
enemy that he combated, with all the energ}^ of his 
soul and all the power of his word, was pagan- 
ism, of which, as we have said, he had everywhere 
found traces, — in arts and morals, in ideas as well 
as acts, in the cloisters as well as in the schools of 
his age." 2 

Savonarola may also be reckoned among tlie 
reformers of philosophy. Opposing the tendency 
which leaned excessively to the authoritj^ of Aris- 
totle, and combating the abuses then prevalent in 

1 Tlie Rationalist historian, Villari, saj^s pointedly: "While re- 
garded hy sceptics and pedants as one bent on reviving the past, 
Savonarola was held by great souls of ISIichael Angelo's stamp to 
be, as he truly was, the precursor of a new era, in which the power 
of Christianity would again be revived without prejudice to nature 
or antiquity." 

2 M. Rio. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 165 

scholastic pliilosopliy, lie raised this study to a 
higher plane by adapting tlie methods and prin- 
ciples of St. Thomas, wlioni he called " the Giant," 
to the issues and needs of his day. 

In his "Apology for the Art of Poetry," Savona- 
rola made a conclusive answer to his critics. This 
treatise embodies the thoughts and sentiments 
which he frequentlj^ expressed in his sermons, and 
is a beautiful exposition of the true and the good. 
He denounces false poets, and defends himself 
cleverly against their charge that he is an enemy 
of poesy, because he has ridiculed rhymesters who 
called themselves poets, knowing only the turn of 
a dactyl or a spondee, and whose "babbling, lawless 
productions " foreboded for genuine scholars the 
" coming of the age, not of iron, but of tinsel and 
gossamer." He had excited the anger of these 
scribblers when he revived among the people the 
old songs, and set them, with patriotic fervor, 
against the licentious ballads then prevailing. 

While enemies attacked him, and left their dia- 
tribes as a basis of calumny to succeeding ages, 
the success of Savonarola's crusade was acknowl- 
edged by many of the literary celebrities who were 
his contemporaries. "I do not think," writes M. 
Rio, "that there has ever been a hero in history 
whose name has been transmitted to posterity with 
a more imposing escort of men illustrious in every 
department ; and we can hardly persuade ourselves 
that we are dealing with nothing but a simple 



166 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



friar, when we read the enumeration of the philos- 
ophers, the poets, and the artists of every kind, — 
architects, sculptors, painters, and even engravers, 
— who offered themselves to liim, almost in a body, 
with enthusiasm, to serve, each in his own sphere, 
as a docile instrument of the great social reforma- 
tion." 

Thus Ficino became his apologist, and resolved 
to give the remainder of his life to religion. The 
famous Benevieni was a most energetic defender 
of his doctrines and prophecies. Pico della Miran- 
dola sold his property, gave the proceeds to Savo- 
narola for the poor, and sought the habit of St. 
Dominic, in which he was buried. Politian, the 
most learned man of letters in his day, also asked 
the favor of the Dominican habit as lie lay on his 
death-bed. The famous Nicholas of Schomberg, 
professor in the University of Pisa, abandoned his 
chair, followed the great prior to St. Mark's, and 
subsequently rose to the episcopac}^ and the car- 
dinalate. These are only a few of the more notable 
among the many that felt and acknowledged the 
powerful genius of the man who was the apostle 
of Christian education. Christian literature. Chris- 
tian art, in the very citadel of neopaganism ; who 
stemmed the tide of the Renaissance, diverting its 
flood into safe channels, and preventing, in a meas- 
ure, the excesses which he could not overcome, and 
which culminated in an age miscalled "goklen," 
and under a Pontiff whose brother Savonarola had 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 167 

driven from the city but lately ruled by tlieir 
father, Lorenzo the Magnificent.^ 

1 Referring to the " blasphemers," as she too vigorously desig- 
nates the assailants of Savonarola as an enemy of the arts, Mrs. 
Oliphant speaks of the glory of St. Mark's, the Convent of the 
Blessed Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo: " No other monastic in- 
stitution has had such a double crown, and it is curious to find the 
home and centre of the great mission of Savonarola — he who was 
the burner of vanities, and the enemy, as his enemies say, of the 
beautiful — thus nobly distinguished by art." 

For an interesting account of the influence exerted by Savo- 
narola on the artists of his time, see " Lives of the Most Emi- 
nent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects of the Order of St. 
Dominic," by the Dominican, Father Marchese. This valuable 
"work was translated into English by the Rev. C. P. Meehan, and 
published by James Duffy, Dublin, in 1852. The reader of these 
volumes will also find the names of the illustrious artists who, 
through Savonarola's influence, joined the Domiuican Order dur- 
ing his lifetime and after his death. 



168 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



IV. 

SAVONAROLA AND LUTHER. 

We now come to the question of Savonarola's 
faith, and to the charge that he was a forerunner 
of Luther. The assumption that the Prior of St. 
Mark's anticipated tlie German friar, and sought 
to " reform " the Church after the manner of the 
northern heretic, rests on two counts: (1) He is 
accused of teaching the pet doctrine of Luther, 
justification by faith without good works ; ^ and 
(2) he is ranked with tliose who have denied the 
supremacy of the Holy See. A brief examination 
of the first count will be sufficient, but we shall 
re-enforce the refutation by a few reflections. The 
second count we shall consider in the next division 
of this cliapter. 

A contrast of the two men in their personal life 
and in the results of their work cannot fail to be 
instructive. The character of Savonarola we have 
already seen, — beautiful in faith, in piety, in good 

1 When Villari, Sismoiidi, and otliers speak of "the new doc- 
trine" of SavonaroLa, they mean the newness of life, the moral 
regeneration which he introduced in Florence, not a change in 
articles of faith. A misunderstanding or a perversion of this fact 
we have observed in many Protestant writers. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 169 

works, in loyalty to his vows as a religious. He 
labored for the elevation of his Order to a greater 
fidelity to rule and observance, and for the trans- 
formation of private and public life in Florence. 
Hear the testimony of one of his opponents who 
wrote: "To me indeed (and the same is admitted 
by ever}^ one) the city seems much changed from 
that which I formerly knew. It is daily becom- 
ing more like a second Nineveh ; for just as the 
latter converted itself to God at the preaching of 
Jonas, so also does the former at the exhortation 
of our preacher." Verily this was a true reform 
of men and manners. Luther inaugurated his 
"reform" by violating his solemn vows, and by 
inducing a nun to commit a like sacrilege. His 
gluttony, drunkenness, and grossness in various 
ways are a scandal to humanity. As to his work, 
we let himself speak : " Since we have begun to 
preach our new doctrine the devil triumphantly 
walks about, the world grows daily worse, more 
impious, more shameless. Men are more avari- 
cious, more impure, than they were under the Pope. 
Everywhere we find abominable passions, — drunk- 
enness, immodesty, disgraceful disorders, schisms, 
sects, complete ruin of order and morality. Li- 
cense and vice are carried to such excess that 
people know no check ; they live without shame, 
as untamed beasts, a prey to every vilest pleas- 
ure." And again : " Now everybody, anybody, 
knows the Gospel better than Dr. Luther, or even 



170 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

St. Paul himself. Nobles, citizens, peasants, de- 
spise the pastors of God, or rather the God and 
Master of pastors." How sad a picture ! How 
accurately did Montaigne sketch it when he wrote 
in the essay on " Physiognomy " his denunciation 
of " reformation by the utmost of deformations." 

And of the man who precipitated this ruin, let 
his friends speak. Zwinglius declares that the 
devil had so far mastered Luther that it foreboded 
his entire possession. Melanchthon wrote that he 
trembled when he thought of Luther's passions, 
which yielded not in violence to those of Her- 
cules. Oecolampadius said that he was seduced 
by Satan, being full of pride and arrogance, and 
another cried out against him as a madman ever 
combating truth. '' How disgusting are his mor- 
als," was the complaint of the new church estab- 
lished at Zurich; "his words seem to be those of 
the devils who carry him along." 

In his history of Charles the Fifth, the Scotch 
Protestant, Robertson, says of Luther : "His doc- 
trines encouraged, and his life set the example, of 
the utmost licentiousness of manners." This un- 
fortunate man, an acknowledged drunkard, whose 
immoralities shocked even licentious followers, 
whose advice to Melanchthon, " sin boldly, but have 
more faith than sin," is an appalling bhisphemy, 
stands before the world as the leader of " reform," 
and is acknowledged and even reverenced by 
many (despite the palpable contradiction involved 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 171 

in resting their faith on the authority of one whose 
fundamental teaching was the rejection of all au- 
thority save that of private, personal judgment) as 
the originator of a great and heavenly blessing to 
humanity. He feigned that Savonarola was his 
forerunner, and in proof of his absurd claim per- 
verted the prior's truly Catholic teaching, wlien 
he published in German some of the latter's com- 
mentaries on the Psalms.^ 

The linking of the name of such a man to that 
of the pure and devout Savonarola assuredly can- 
not be attempted on personal grounds. If any 
ties exist, they must be of theory, for the practical 
effects of their doctrine were wholly dissimilar. 
In his commentaries on the Thirtieth and Fiftieth 
Psalms, written in prison, Savonarola speaks of 
faith and good works. A passage was wrested 
from its just meaning, and a forced interpretation 
put upon it, not only by Luther when he published 
these treatises at Strasburg in 1524, and hailed 
Savonarola as a forerunner who had placed all jus- 
tification in faith, but also by many writers since 
Luther's time.^ 

"It is absolutely false," says the Protestant Pro- 
fessor Villari, "that he ever renounced or neg- 
lected to maintain the value of good works and 

1 Consult Appendix I. 

2 Notably tlie German biographers of Savonarola, Rudelbach 
(1835), Meier (1836), Hale (1851), all of whom signally failed to 
sustain their plea. 



172 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

religious ceremonies." Tlie tenor of his whole life 
proves this ; his last writing in prison, the re- 
membrance to his jailer, confirms his unwavering 
Catholic doctrine. " Therefore," he concludes, 
" perseverance in virtuous living, in good works, 
in Confession, in Communion, in all that draws us 
nearer to grace, is the true and certain way to pro- 
cure its increase." Commenting on this, Villari 
says, " If any one should fail to recognize that this 
doctrine is purely and exclusively Catholic, and 
that Savonarola remained steadfastly true to his 
creed till the close of his life, it would be impossi- 
ble to find other proofs by which to convince him." 
The unity of the Church, as the same authority 
insists, was his most cherished aim. Luther, on 
the contrary, rent the seamless robe of Christ, and 
rejected those Sacraments which to Savonarola 
had always been the divinely appointed channels 
of grace and strength. Savonarola longed for a 
reformation, but only in discipline and morals. 
This is acknowledged by Villari when he sa3^s that 
the prior never attacked the dogmas of the Church, 
but only those who corrupted them.^ And another 

1 Referring to the Piagnoni after the death of Savonarola, 
Villari writes: " As we have seen, their religious creed was inva- 
riably and strictly Catholic. Even when Rome was besieged by 
Protestant hosts, and the Florentines were warring against the 
deadly attacks of the Pope, the Piagnoni refused to coalesce with 
the followers of the Reformation, and indeed the few Protestants 
existing in Florence were marks for the popular fury. This was 
undoubtedly another and most evident sign that Savonarola's 
doctrines were very different from those of Luther." 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. ' 173 

Protestant, the Swiss Sismoiidi, declares that in 
seeking to reform the Church, Savonarola never 
deviated from the pale of orthodoxy. He did not 
claim the right of examining doctrine, of "private 
judgment ; " rather did he devote all his efforts to 
the restoration of discipline, to the reformation 
of the lives of the clerg}^, and to the winning of 
priests and la3^men to a more perfect observance 
of the Gospel precepts. 

" The spirit of Savonarola," wrote Lord Macaulay, 
" had nothing in common with the spirit, religious 
or political, of the Protestants of the North." 

Quoting Savonarola's utterance on the power of 
Peter and his successors, his Protestant biographer. 
Dr. William Clark, says, " When we remember 
that tliese are the words of a man then suffering 
under a Papal excommunication, we may easily 
perceive how far he was removed from that which 
we mean by the name of a Protestant. He was 
no heretic ; he was no schismatic ; for he liad 
plainly declared that the Chair of Peter was the 
centre of the Catholic Church." 

Mr. Brownson, in his Revieiv for April, 1852, 
claimed that Savonarola had not yet been cleared 
from error and proved to have been a good Catho- 
lic. This is not only vague, but untrue. We 
refer to it merely to contrast it with the judgment 
of intelligent Protestant writers and with the facts. 

The ex-Calvinist and freethinker, Bayle, who 
venomously collected in his dictionary every opin- 



174 JEROME SAVONAROLA, 

ion inimical to the friar, expresses his surprise at 
the Protestant assumption of Savonarola's kinship: 
" It is very strange that Protestants should num- 
ber among their martyrs a friar who during his 
lifetime had always celebrated Mass and invoked 
the saints, and who at the hour of his death went 
to Confession and Communion, made an act of 
faith in tlie Real Presence, and humbly accepted a 
Plenary Indulgence granted to him by the Pope." 

The Protestant historian von Ranke dismisses 
the claim of Savonarola's precursorship of Luther 
with a few words : '' Luther wished chiefly a refor- 
mation of the doctrine, Savonarola a reformation 
of the morals and the constitution ; " and in the 
same essay he describes Savonarola as " a reformer 
who did not fling off the cowl, but who contended 
with the Papacy, remaining just what he was — 
a friar." 

" He was no apostle of reform (as understood by 
Luther)," writes John Addington Symonds, in his 
"History of the Renaissance;" "it did not occur 
to liim to reconstruct the creed, to dispute the dis- 
cipline, or to criticise the authority of the Church." 
He never went to the length of braving Alexander 
by burning his bulls, and by denying the authority 
of Popes in general. He desired to purge the 
Churcli of sin, but to retain its hierarchy and its 
dogmas inviolate. He stoutly maintained the right 
of the Holy See to temporal dominion, and in this 
he antagonized the subsequent teaching of Machi- 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 175 

avelli and Guicciardiiii, who wished to strip the 
Pope of civil power. Mr. Symonds also compares 
Savonarola to St. Bernardino of Siena and other 
Catholic reformers, and emphasizes the fact that 
none of these ever changed doctrines ; they sought 
only renewal of morals, — a thing, adds this preju- 
diced writer, that removes Savonarola immeasurably 
from Huss and Luther. 

The well-known Protestant Church historian, 
Mosheim, ranks Savonarola among the wisest and 
best men of his age, a pious, eloquent, and learned 
man, Avho "having probed the Romish ulcers too 
freely, suffered for his rashness." Allowing for 
the peculiarities of gentlemen who say " Romish," 
we quote this writer who is representative, but he 
makes no claim to Savonarola as a forerunner of 
Luther. 

Canon Creighton, from wliom we have already 
quoted, readily distinguishes the German Protes- 
tant from the Italian Catholic. " The last days of 
Savonarola," says Creighton, " were spent in writ- 
ing a meditation on the Fifty-first Psalm. This, 
together witli his other devotional writings, enjoyed 
a wide popularity, and went through many edi- 
tions. It fell into the hands of Luther, who re- 
published it in 1523, with a preface in which he 
claimed Savonarola as one of his own predecessors 
in setting forth the doctrine of justification by 
faith onl3^ He writes, in his usual trenchant 
style, 'Though the feet of this holy man are still 



176 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

soiled by theological mud, nevertheless he upheld 
the doctrine of justification by faith only without 
works, and therefore he was burned by the Pope. 
But he lives in blessedness ; and Christ canonizes 
him by our means, even though Pope and papists 
burst with rage.' It is not worth while to examine 
Luther's grounds for such a statement. Savona- 
rola's words are full of ardent faith in Christ, but 
Luther's position was far from his mind. He taught 
nothing which was opposed to the accepted doc- 
trines of the Church, he never denied the Papal 
headship, and he received submissively the plenary 
indulgence which Alexander the Sixth granted 
him before his death." ^ 

Rev. W. H. Rule, the title of whose work, " Sa- 
vonarola and the Dawn of the Reformation," suffi- 
ciently testifies to the autlior's Protestantism, 
deplores the fact that Savonarola did not get at 
the heart of Evangelical Christianity, justification 
by faith without good works. Indeed, while Mr. 
Rule is willing to call Savonarola a hero, he re- 
fuses to place him among the martyrs, just because 
he was only " a reformer of morals, and not of 
doctrines." ^ 

Another Protestant writer, to whom we have 
already referred, Mr. Dinwiddie, though he con- 

1 Vol. iii., p. 24G. 

2 See also the admissions of the anonymous author of "The 
Life and Times of Savonarola, Illustrating the Progress of the 
Reformation in Italy during the Fifteenth Century." London, 
1843. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 177 

tends that Savonarola's preaching helped the work 
of the Saxon friar, still denies that the former had 
any fellowship) with Luther or with any of his fore- 
runners, so-called.i 

We close our references from Protestant author- 
ities witli a quotation from Mrs. Oliphant. Speak- 
ing of Savonarola's excommunication she says : 
"This was the moment in which, had he been a 
Lutlier, his Protestantism would have developed ; 
but such was not the turn of his mind. It did not 
occur to him to doubt the institutions of his Church, 
or to question her authorit}^" 

Of the genuine reformation that was wrought 
in the sixteenth century by Popes and bishops and 
saints, Savonarola may be called a forerunner; 
and to his influence in life, his teachings, his ex- 
ample in death, some able Catholic writers have 
ascribed the salvation of Italy when the flood- 
tide of heresy and iniquity flowed over Northern 
Europe, and submerged tlie nations that had 
accepted the leadership of Luther in revolt against 
the See of Rome, and in repudiation of the doc- 
trines of the Church of Jesus Christ.^ 

1 " Times before the Reformation." 

2 For a very satisfactory and exhaustive discussion of this phase 
of Savonarola's life, we refer the reader to an excellent brochure 
entitled " Savonarola and the Reformation," by the Very Reve- 
rend Father John Procter, O.P., of Haverstock Hill, London. 



178 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 



V. 

THE CONTEST WITH THE POPE. 

The contest between Savonarola and Pope Al- 
exander VI. is the crucial point in a life other- 
wise flawless. In the course of our narrative we 
related the events as they transpired ; we here 
note the difference between Luther and the Prior 
of St. INIark's in their attitude towards the Sover- 
eign Pontiff. At the outset we must put aside all 
questions as to the personality of the Pope, this 
being a consideration that is not essential to his 
authority. Admitting the indictments tliat have 
been proved against Alexander, we must bear in 
mind the words of St. Leo L, "The dignity of 
Peter does not fail even in an unwortliy suc- 
cessor." Nor are we justified in arbitrarily judg- 
ing motives. Villari is unfair in his frequent 
charges that Alexander always acted from sinister 
motives in dealing with Savonarola, nor for these 
serious accusations does he offer proof. The Pope 
was obliged to act. He showed considerateness, 
deference even, for Savonarola. We should ab- 
stain, therefore, with greater reason, from imputing 
to the Pope evil purposes, even if we fail to agree 
with his policy. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 179 

Savonarola defied Alexander, but cliiefly in con- 
nection with matters political. Bewailing also the 
abuses of his time, and yielding to the impression 
that Alexander was not a validly elected Pope, 
that his acts and commands were neither binding 
nor effective, Savonarola, holding to the notion, 
then not uncommon, that a Council Avas superior 
to the Pope, subsequently took the stand of an 
appeal to a Council which he tried to have assem- 
bled. 

In the beginning he was ready to yield obedi- 
ence, as we have seen ; and his language, in ad- 
dressing the Holy Father, was reverential and 
submissive. Even when the contest had become 
acute, the prior maintained a tone of devoted loy- 
alty to the Chair of Peter, of belief in Papal 
infallibility. Against the authority of the Church 
he did not intend to strive, but only against an 
individual whom he erroneously considered as in- 
validly holding the Papacy. This judgment, aris- 
ing from his belief as to Alexander's simoniacal 
election, involved a decision which it was not for 
him to make. Here was the grievous error. In 
his most fiery denunciations against the evils of 
the day and the abuses in the Church, not one 
word will be found of disrespect to the teach- 
ing power, to the divinely established Papacy. 
Towards Alexander his language is usually re- 
spectful ; even when he speaks of wrong-doing, he 
is not wanting in personal regard for the Pontiff. 



180 JEROME SAVONAROLA, 

Contrast this conduct with the actions and 
words of Luther towards Leo X. Between them 
the contest was one entirely theological, the doc- 
trines and sacraments of the Church alone enter- 
ing into the dispute. Luther was summoned to 
Rome. What was his answer? "Do you know 
what I think of Rome? It is a confused collec- 
tion of fools, idiots, simpletons, blockheads, demoni- 
acs, and devils ! Pope and Jackass are synonymous 
terms ! " And then, with the gentleness which 
marked his later career in speech and writing, he 
proceeds to tell Pope Leo that he would like to 
wash his hands "in tlie blood of the corrupt teach- 
ers, cardinals, and Popes, the Roman Sodom con- 
taminating the Church ! " 

Why add to this ? It is evident, not only from 
the German friar's defiance, but from succeeding 
events and results, that historical truth is shocked 
and the name of a saintly Catholic is outraged by 
associating it with the name and teaching of Mar- 
tin Luther. The Luther monument, erected in 
Worms in the year 1868, is, therefore, so far as 
it represents Savonarola, a monumental falsehood. 
The central figure is that of Luther; other images 
are those of Melanchthon, Reuchlin, Philip of Hesse, 
and Frederick of Saxony — all agreeable society. 
At the base is a smaller group representing Waldo, 
Wickliffe, Huss, and Savonarola, as tlie forerun- 
ners of the rebel friar of Wittenberg. No calumny 
uttered during his life would have hurt the Flor- 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 181 

entine prior so keenly as does this infamous slan- 
der, published in an enduring form, four hundred 
3^ears after his death. 

" The banner of revolt will be raised against the 
Churcli by another, a son of perdition, an instru- 
ment of God's terrible judgments," was Savonaro- 
la's latest prophecy. The visitation then predicted 
came with the sack of Rome, when Clement the 
Seventh was taken prisoner, and when the ruffianly 
German soldiers robed themselves in the caidinals' 
attire and proceeded to elect as Pope — Martin 
Luther ! He had raised the standard of rebellion, 
and Savonarola was his foreteller, but not his fore- 
runner. 



182 JEBOME SAVONABOLA. 



VI. 

SA rOXAROLA VENERA TED B Y SAINTL Y MEN AND WOMEN. 

A PECULIARLY interesting feature of Savona- 
rola's history is the veneration entertained for 
him by saints. Assuredly God guided the chosen 
souls whose heroic virtues the Church has crowned 
by canonization, or by the minor dignity of beati- 
fication, through which they are numbered with 
those to whom public and solemn honors may be 
rendered. That Dominicans should privately re- 
vere the memory of a saintly brother is not sur- 
prising.^ The outspoken homage of acknowledged 

1 "SVe must here dissent from Dr. Pastor's charge that the 
Superiors of the Dominican Order had for a hundred years inter- 
dicted the name of Savonarola, thus antagonizing the veneration 
entertained for him among his brethren. The term " superiors " 
is very vague. As to the action of local superiors in such an 
affair, we simply state that it carried only the weight of individ- 
ual opinion, for the matter was beyond their jurisdiction; as to 
the supreme heads of the Order, who alone could outline its 
policy, historj' does not bear out the sweeping statement of Pastor. 
Prudence probably dictated such restrictions as the authorities of 
the Order imposed on the veneration of Savonarola's picture and 
the claims made for his saintliness during a troubled period, when 
as yet the name of the martyred prior had not been vindicated 
through critical research and historical analysis of the records of 
his time. In only two instances, however, did a general of the 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 183 

saints is more significant. Among those who thus 
regarded Savonarola we may mention the Blessed 
Catharine of Raconigi, of whom the Breviary states 
that in heavenly glory she ranks with St. Catharine 
of Siena, less only in the earthly splendor of can- 
onization ; Blessed Sebastian Maggi ; Blessed 
Osauna of Mantua ; Blessed Columba of Rieti ; 
Blessed Mary Bartholomew Bognesi ; St. Catha- 
rine of Ricci, and St. Pius V. St. Catharine al- 
ways kept in her cell a portrait of Savonarola 
painted by Bartolommeo with the inscription, *' A 
true likeness of Father Jerome, a prophet sent by 
God." She also possessed, as a sacred relic, one of 



Order take action against the veneration of Savonarola. The 
first occurred four years after his death, when a command was 
issued forbidding the brethren of St. Mark's to call him a saint, 
a prophet, or a martyr. Burlamacchi does not hesitate to ascribe 
this prohibition to the influence of a friar named Sacromoro (whose 
name we have not previously mentioned), who was regarded as 
the Judas* Iscariot of Savonarola in the hour of his sore need. 
More than eighty years passed^ when, in 1585, the Master General, 
Father Fabri di Luca, issued another prohibition to all his sub- 
jects, forbidding them to mention Savonarola's name; to treat of 
his life, miracles, companions; to have his image or picture. At 
that time one of the Medici family, Octavian, was Archbishop of 
Florence. Father IVIarchese does not hesitate, on the authority 
of a letter written by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, which he dis- 
covered in the Florentine archives, to indicate this prelate as the 
occasion of the new edict. St. Catherine de Ricci entered a most 
respectful but vigorous j>rotest against this prohibition, caution- 
ing the Master General not to take this step. Forty years before, 
the Tuscan Grand Duke, Cosimo the First, expelled the brethren 
from St. Mark's, though he was soon compelled by Pope Paul the 
Third to restore them. Thus i)olitics and persecution followed 
Savonarola after his death. 



184 JEBOME SAVONAROLA. 

his fingers,^ and did not hesitate to ascribe to him 
the power of miracles. In her life we find the rec- 
ord of various apparitions reported to have been 
made to her by Savonarola and his two companions 
in death. The saint declared that he had cured 
her of a serious illness. Outside of the Dominican 
Order, St. Francis of Paula, who had prophesied 
his martyrdom twenty years before it occurred, 
regarded him as a chosen servant of God. Blessed 
Juvinal Ancina and Blessed John Fisher also held 
him to be a saint. St. Philip Neri venerated him, 
kept his image Avith rays of glory about the head, 
lovingly called him the Apostle of Florence, and 
reverently prayed to him.^ These facts deserve 
the attention of Catholic writers who are tempted 
to be more orthodox than the holy men and women 
that displayed so great devotion to Savonarola. 

1 The flames did not entirely consume the body of Savonarola ; 
various relics were secured among the ashes. 

2 The publication of an Office in honor of Savonarola by devout 
admirers we cannot commend. Such a recognition can come, of 
right, only from the Holy See. We consider claims to sanctity 
based on such " offices " to be without the pale. Proclaiming them 
as "proof," as indiscreet panegyrists have done, serves no good 
purpose. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA, 185 



yn. 

ATTITUDE OF THE HOLY SEE TOWARD SAVOXAROLA. 

We shall close our sketch with a few words 
touching the attitude of the Holy See towards Sa- 
vonarola. Alexander VI. acknowledged that he 
had been misinformed, admitted the virtues of the 
prior, repudiated all blame for his death, and, ac- 
coi'ding to Burlamacchi, declared his willingness 
to enroll him among the saints. 

Julius II., who succeeded Alexander after the 
brief pontificate of Pius III., knew well the career 
of Savonarola. That he authorized the painting 
by Raphael of his likeness with that of St. Thomas 
Aquinas in the famous fresco, " The Dispute on 
the Blessed Sacrament," cannot be understood in 
any but a favorable light. 

In 1516 Leo X. journeyed to Florence, and hav- 
ing gone to St. Mark's, granted an indulgence 
of ten years and ten Lents to all who would 
devoutly visit the prior's cell.^ In this humble 

1 Pastor insinuates that it was not in honor of Savonarola that 
Leo X. thus favored this cell. An insinuation is no argument, 
and it hecomes conspicuously worthless, and even suggestive of 
bias or prejudice, when it ignores facts. Leo X. understood his 
own mind. To what extent he may have thought of reparation 



186 JEROME SAVONAROLA. 

room various relics are still preserved, telling with 
mute eloquence of the religious life and devotion 
of the illustrious man whose spirit seems still to 
pervade the place, now no longer the house of 
prayer, but a "national monument" by the "favor" 
of Italy's infidel and confiscating government. 

One hundred years after the death of the Frate, 
Clement VIII. declared that if Ferrara fell into his 
hands he would canonize her most illustrious son, 
— Savonarola. 

Benedict XIV. deemed him worthy of canoniza- 
tion, and allowed his name to appear in a cata- 
logue published during his pontificate, containing 
a list of blessed servants of God and of other ven- 
erable persons illustrious by their sanctity.^ 

And yet he has not been canonized, and prob- 
ably this honor will never be accorded to him. 
To us the reason seems simple. That the Holy 
See should vindicate its dignity by withholding 
from one Avho had failed in submission, even under 
the circumstances of Savonarola's case, the supreme 
mark on earth of crowned sanctity, ought not to 

to the memory of the great prior, we may not judge ; we know, 
however, that he designated his room as the place of favor. 
Had it been the Pope's purpose to honor St. Mark's simply, why 
did he choose this particular cell? If he wished to signalize his 
esteem for one of the distinguished brethren, why did he not 
single out the cell of the sainted ai-chbishop, Antoninus, or that 
of the blessed and angelic painter? 

1 Madden states that he had it on high authority that one of 
the earliest designs of Pius IX. was the canonization of Savo- 
narola. 




SAVONAROLA'S CELL, 
In the Convent of St. Mark, Florence. 



JEROME SAVONAROLA. 187 

occasion surprise. Moses failed only venially, by 
a moment's hesitation, a needless stroke, and yet, 
despite his splendid services, his heroic virtues, 
this man, meekest among all, went up to Mount 
Nebo to die, looking out with wistful eyes over 
the Promised Land, past whose borders he might 
never go ! 

It may be, therefore, that Savonarola's name will 
never be placed on the calendar of the saints. In 
heavenly glory we believe that he enjoys the bea- 
tific vision ; for, mindful of the saints who sinned 
and repented, and applying to him the oft-quoted 
words of St. Augustine touching St. Cyprian, " If 
he had faults wherewith to reproach himself re- 
garding his conduct to the Pope, he has fully ex- 
piated them by his glorious martyrdom," we may 
claim that blood and fire washed away whatever 
stain may have tarnished a career so pure and 
illustrious. 



APPENDIX I. 

SAVONAROLA'S DOCTRINES, OPINIONS, AND SENTIMENTS 
ILLUSTRATED FROM HIS PUBLISHED WORKS. 

Father Quetif, 0. P., divides the published works 
of Savonarola into four classes : (ci) ascetic ; {h) pro- 
phetic ; (c) dogmatic ; (d) controversial and apologetic. 
Of the first class there are thirty-eight different pub- 
lications, including leaflets, tracts, pamphlets, and 
regular volumes. Under nine other headings he num- 
bers thirty sermons on the Sundays and Festivals ; 
forty-eight sermons on the Prophets Amos and Zach- 
ary ; twenty-nine on the Book of Ruth ; forty-nine on 
Ezechiel ; a volume on Exodus ; and one on the Psalms. 
The second class includes all the sermons on special 
texts of the Old and the New Testaments. The third 
class contains eight volumes, and the fourth ten. 

These writings, covering a great variety of subjects, 
offer indisputable evidence of Savonarola's complete 
and unwavering Catholic faith. An edition of his 
works was published during the lifetime of Alexander 
VI., but this Pontiff expressed no word of condemna- 
tion. Under succeeding Popes, Paul III., Julius III., 
and Paul lY., they were subjected to a rigorous ex- 
amination, and were declared free from error. ^ Dur- 

1 A few sermons — fifteen in number — and the dialogue on 
prophetic truth were suspended for reasons of prudence, because 

188 



APPENDIX 1. 189 

ing this final examination, St. Philip Neri, who had 
previously assisted in the publication of a memoir 
in defence of Savonarola, was constantly engaged in 
praying that God might crown his venerated patron 
with Rome's approval. At the very hour, as we read 
in his life, when the decision was rendered, St. Philip 
was in the Dominican Church of the Minerva, Rome, 
most fervently and hopefully praying, and there re- 
ceived the divine assurance of victory. Paul III. 
declared that he would regard as suspected of heresy 
any man who would charge Savonarola with heresy. 

" The Triumph of the Cross " became a text-book in 
seminaries, and St. Philip Neri made it a part of his 
spiritual direction to urge upon his penitents the read- 
ing of Savonarola's books.^ 

We have made a few selections from various parts 
of his writings, believing that his own words, even 
though given without special order or connection, and 
under limitations that involve some obscurity and even 
some injustice to the writer, will reveal in a manner 
the character of Savonarola. From his treatise on 
government we give no extracts. A clear exposition 
of the principles underlying government, a vivid pic- 
ture of the evils of tyranny, this brief but most 
pithy essay must be read in its entirety, to be judged 

the circumstances which gave rise to them no longer existed. 
This prohibition was not a condemnation. It was merely a pre- 
cautionary measure. 

1 Cardinal Barberini, a brother of Pope Urban the Eighth, left 
by will five hundred ducats to meet the expenses of a new edition 
of " The Triumph of the Cross," and of the commentaries on the 
Fiftieth Psalm. 



190 APPENDIX 1. 

aright.^ From other works we would have been 
pleased to draw more copiously did our purpose and 
scope permit. 

His meditation on the Fiftieth Psalm, '^ Have mercy 
on me, God, according to Thy great mercy," fur- 
nishes a passage which has been Avrenched from its 
context, and unjustly offered as a proof that he 
taught the uselessness of good works, and that salva- 
tion comes through faith alone : — 

"Hast thou faith? Well, know then that this is a great 
grace from God, for faith is Ills gift ; it cannot be obtained 
by our works, lest any one should glory in himself." 

These words simply proclaim the Catholic doctriue 
that faith, one of the virtues known as theological in 
distinction from those that are moral, is absolutely 
the gift of God, the beginning of our supernatural re- 
lations with Him, the foundation of our spiritual life. 

1 This treatise consists of an Introduction and three parts, each 
containing three chapters. In the first part he discourses on the 
following heads : («) that government is necessary in human 
affairs — what kind of government is good, what had ; {b) although 
government by one (a monarchy), when it is good, is of its nature 
the best, it is not the best for every state ; (c) the citizen govern- 
ment (a Republic) is the best for Florence. In the second part he 
proves (o) that government by one, when it is bad, is the worst, 
particularly when that one, from a citizen has made himself a 
tyrant, of whose malice and wickedness he treats in {h), reserving 
for (c) a consideration of the welfare of a state imperilled by a 
tyrant, and of the special injury wrought by such a ruler in Flor- 
ence. In the third part he tells («) of the institution and manner 
of government by citizens ; {h) what citizens should do in order to 
perfect a republican government ; and (c) of the happiness of those 
who rule wisely and well, and of the misery of tyrants and their 
followers. 



1 



APPENDIX L 191 

And in this very thought is involved the building of 
the superstructure of good works, which must be freely 
done by man, aided by the power of divine grace. 
Our salvation depends on our willing it. Hence Savo- 
narola, in other parts of his exposition of this Psalm, 
emphasizes the need of good works, springing from a 
good will. '' Who is he that puts bounds to the mercy 
of God ? Hast thou not heard the Lord say that 
when the sinner repents and turns away from his sins 
He will no more remember his iniquities ? Hast thou 
fallen ? Arise, and mercy shall receive thee. Hast 
thou been ruined ? Cry, and mercy shall come to 
thee." Assuredly '' repenting,'^ " turning from sin," 
''arising," ''crying to the Lord," are evidences of 
man's will, and work and share in his salvation ; and 
no honest reader of Savonarola's meditation on the 
Miserere can arrive at any other conclusion than that 
of his entire Catholicity of teaching. 

In further testimony, however, we add an extract 
from his treatise on humility and prayer : — 

" The virtues of charity and humility are as the two extremes 
of the spiritual edifice ; humility is the foundation, charity is 
the completion, of the structure. Therefore the faithful should 
abase themselves before God, recognizing that of ourselves we 
can do no good, that without God's help our deeds would be 
evil. It is not sufficient that the mind assent to this principle, 
the soul must feel it profoundly. The will of man being free, 
he must, therefore, use all his endeavors to crush pride, and 
become a vessel of grace. For this, outward actions will he 
not only useful, but necessary . A man of faith must humble 
himself before his superiors and his equals. Let him humble 
himself even before his inferiors. But if on reaching this 



192 APPENDIX I. 

stage he considers that he has accomplished much, then out- 
ward humility will have increased at the expense of his soul ; 
he will lose all merit. Let him, therefore, ever be mindful 
of his own unwortliiness. 

" Let a man pray every day fervently and long. But we 
should always remember that prayer must be accompanied by 
humility and charity or it will be of no avail. As there should 
be fervor in prayer, and as fervor may be considered prayer, 
so in doing deeds of charity, it may be said that we pray." 

And from one of his sermons on the Psalms we 
take a passage that marks his clear teaching of the 
necessity of grace as the foundation of all supernatu- 
ral merit: — 

"Let all Paradise come here [he exclaims], let the angels 
come, let the patriarchs and prophets come, let the martyrs 
come, let the doctors and all the saints come, one by one, 
that I may dispute with them. Come, all the elect of God, 
that I may dispute with you. Say the truth, give glory to 
God, confess the truth, if you have the gloiy, if you are happy 
and blessed by your own merits alone, and by your own 
strength, or by divine goodness. Come here, you especially 
who have been immersed in sins. Tell me, O Peter, tell me, 
O Magdalene, why are you in Paradise ? You certainly sinned 
like us. Thou, Peter, who didst confess the Son of God, who 
didst converse with Him, heardest Him preach, sawest His 
miracles, nay more, who alone with two other disciples sawest 
Him transfigured on Mount Tabor, and heardest the Father's 
voice, and nevertheless at the word of a mere woman didst 
deny Him three times, and yet wast restored to grace and 
made head of the Church, and now possessest heavenly glory, 
— whence hast thou obtained such great mercy ? Thou Avilt 
say, perhaps, because thou didst return in heart, because thou 
didst begin to weep bitterly ? Yes, O Peter, thanks to the 
divine goodness which looked upon thee, as the Evangelist 
says, ' The Lord turned and looked upon Peter ; and Peter 



APPENDIX I. 193 

went out and wept bitterly.' Thou didst not weep until the 
Lord looked upon thee ; thou didst not return in heart until 
the Lord touched thy heart. Confess, then, Peter, it is not 
by thy merits, but by the goodness of God, that thou hast 
obtained such blessings." 

In another discourse he asks, " Do you wish Jesus 
Christ to be your friend ? Answer, then, His divine 
appeal. Your Lord asks you to give Him your heart. 
Do something for Him then." Assuredly all this is 
Catholic doctrine. 

In the "Rule for a Christian Life," his remem- 
brance to his jailer, he wrote : — 

*' Holy living depends on grace ; therefore we must strive 
to obtain grace, and having secured it, we must endeavor to 
increase it. To examine our conscience, to meditate on the 
vanity of earthly things, are means of grace. Confession and 
Communion move our hearts to receive it. Certainly it is a 
free gift of God; but when we have contempt for the world, 
when a strong desire turns us to spiritual things, then we may 
feel assured that grace does work. Therefore perseverance 
in virtuous living, in good works, in Confession, in Communion, 
in all that draws to us grace, is the sure way to increase it." 

His acknowledgment of the Primacy of the Holy 
See is complete : — 

"The Church is one, under one head, in the likeness and 
as the image of the Church triumphant in Heaven under the 
reign of Jesus Christ. ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock 
I will build My Church, and 1 will give vmto thee the keys of 
the Kingdom of Heaven, so that whatsoever thou shalt bind 
on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatsoever thou 
shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.' These words 
cannot be applied to Peter alone ; for as God has promised that 
the Church shall continue till the end of time, they must apply 



194 APPENDIX I. 

also to Peter's successors. Therefore it is manifest that all 
the faithful should be united under the Pope, as the supreme 
head of the Church of Rome, the mother of all other churches. 
^Mioever departs from the unity and the doctrines of the Roman 
Chui'ch, unquestionably such a one departs from Chrisf'' 

When he began preaching after his long silence, 
he made a public profession of his faith : — 

" I have always believed, and do believe, all that the Holy- 
Roman Church believes. I have "written to Rome that if I 
have preached or written anything heretical, I am content to 
amend and recant here in public. I am always prepared to 
obey the Holy See, and I say that he who does not obey will 
be damned. ... I declare and confess that the Church will 
never fail even to the Day of Judgment ; and that my meaning 
may be clear, as there are various opinions as to what is the 
Catholic Church, I refer myself to the decision of the Roman 
Church established by Jesus Christ." 

Enumerating the seven Sacraments (five of which 
the Keformers in England and Germany rejected), 
Savonarola taught : — 

"They are instruments, the means established by Jesus 
Christ for the working out of our salvation. As these Sacra- 
ments are the channels of grace, and as no one can be saved 
without grace, we must receive them as instruments of the 
divine help." 

On Confession he writes clearl}- : — 

"Legal judgment is necessary that proper punishment may 
be inflicted for sin ; so it is necessary that the penitent who 
submits himself to Christ to be healed nuist await the judg- 
ment which Christ makes known thi'ough His minister. But 
since a correct judgment cannot be pronounced on unknown 



APPENDIX I. 195 

sin, Confession is needed, so that the wound which had been 
concealed is laid bare to the minister of Christ in order for a 
proper healing." 

This is from the third book of "The Triumph of 
the Cross." In language equally plain he discourses 
on contrition and satisfaction. From the same vol- 
ume, the following passage sets forth Savonarola's 
faith concerning the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass : — 

" We believe and declare that under the appearance of 
bread, no matter how small, is the Body of Christ, whole and 
entire ; and that under the appearance of wine, even a drop, 
is the Blood of Christ, whole and entire ; and we believe that 
Jesus Christ, whole and entire, is at the same time in Heaven. 
We say that the Body and Blood of Christ are present in the 
Blessed Eucharist, in virtue of the words of consecration, not 
because He comes there from some other place, but because 
the substance of the bread and the wine is changed. By the 
power of the words through which Transubstantiation takes 
place, there are in the Eucharist the Body and Blood of 
Jesus Christ under the appearances of bread and wine, be- 
cause such is the meaning of Transubstantiation. By natural 
concomitance the Soul and the Divinity are also present." 

Of the Thirty-nine Articles embodying the " faith " 
of the " reformed " Church of England, the twenty- 
second brands devotion to our Lady as a thing " vainly 
invented, founded upon no warranty of Scripture, but 
rather repugnant to the word of God." As an illus- 
tration of Savonarola's love for the Queen of Heaven, 
we here give an English version of the hymn written 
by him during the plague in Florence, and sung by 
the people with great fervor and confidence. It is 
an evidence of Savonarola's poetic talent as well as 



196 APPENDIX 1. 

a proof of his tender devotion to our Lady, a point 
on which, despite his numerous and loving references 
throughout his sermons and his commentaries on the 
Hail Mary, he has been cruelly misrepresented. It 
is entitled : — 

MARY, THE STAR OF THE SEA. 

O Star of Galilee, 
Shining o'er this earth's dark sea, 
Shed thy glorious light on me, 
Maria Stella Maris. 

Queen of Clemency and Love, 
Be my Advocate above. 
And, through Christ, all sin remove, 
Maria Stella Maris. 

When the Angel called thee blest, 
And with transports tilled thy breast, 
'Twas thy Lord became thy Guest, 
Maria Stella Maris. 

Earth's purest creature thou, 
In the heavens exulting now, 
With a halo round thy brow, 
Maria Stella Maris. 

Beauty beams in every trace 
Of the Virgin Mother's face, 
Full of glory and of grace — 
Maria Stella Maris. 

A Beacon to the just, 

To the sinner Hope and Trust, 

Joy of the angel host, 

Maria Stella Maris. 

Ever glorified, tliy throne 
Is where tliy Blessed Son 
Doth reign : through Him alone, 
Maria Stella Maris. 



APPENDIX I. 197 

All pestilence shall cease, 
And sin and strife decrease, 
And the kingdom come of peace, 
Maria Stella Maris. 

He warns the faithful against unwarranted reading 
of the Bible, in which counsel he shows his Catholicity 
as opposed to the radical error of Protestantism : — 

"He who undertakes to read the Holy Scriptures without 
being enlightened by a supernatural light,i embarrasses and 
deceives himself. He who thus reads will not understand, 
he will spend his time in vain. Natural sciences can be ac- 
quired through the natural light which reason gives to us; but 
the divine science cannot be learned without a special ray of 
light from God. Hence it happens that many of those who 
read the Holy Scriptures do not comprehend their beauty, 
nor do they understand. They fulfil the word of Isaias: 
' The visions of the Prophets shall be unto you as the words of 
a book closed and sealed, for the blind cannot see colors.' " 

Then he proceeds to show the necessity of purity 
of heart that the divine light may be of profit : — 

"Let him, therefore, who would profit by reading the Holy 
Scriptures, purge himself of sin; let him free himself from 
worldly cares ; let him begin with prayer and in humility ; let 
him withdraw, in the spirit of faith, to the solitude of his 
chamber. Thus prepared, and fortified by his good works, he 
will deserve a share in heavenly light whereby he may read 
unto profit." 

In his commentary on the '^ Our Father/' he 

writes : — 

"As it is absolutely necessary that grace and our free will 
should concur, in order that we may obtain the remission of 
our sins, it is needful, O my soul, if we would deserve God's 

1 The guidance and assurance in interpretation of the Church. 



198 APPENDIX I. 

grace, that we do all in our x>owe)\ lest in asking pardon for 
our faults, and persevering in evil, we come to be of the num- 
ber of those who wilfully tempt God." 

Had Luther honestly read this passage he would 
not have quoted Savonarola in defence of his theory 
of justification without good works. The words of 
the Dominican are an anticipated protest against 
Luther's blasphemy : ^' Sin strongly, but have still 
stronger faith." 

How touching is his letter to his father, written 
when he left his home to become a Dominican : — 

" The motive which decides me to enter Religion is simply 
this: the wretchedness and misery of the world ; the wicked- 
ness of men, their thefts, imi)urities, and robberies ; the pride, 
idolatry, and blasphemies which so defile our times that we 
find few who try to lead a good life. Hence these lines often 
come to my mind, and bring tears to my eyes : — 

'Fly from this heartless land, 
Fly from this covetous shore.' i 

Indeed, I can no longer endure the appalling wickedness that 
exists in parts of Italy. Everywhere piety is despised and 
vice is honored. "What keener sorrow can this life ever 
bring me ? Day after day, therefore, I have implored our 
Lord Jesus Christ to save me from the abyss ; while my heart 
unceasingly cries out, ' Show me, O God, the way in which I 
should walk, for unto Thee have I lifted up my soul.' In His 
infinite pity God has deigned to show me the way, and I have 
entered upon it, although it is a grace of which I am entirely 
unworthy." 

How like X Kempis is the letter to some Dominican 
Sisters who had importuned him for instructions : — 

1 Virgil. 



APPENDIX I. 199 

" Continual writing is iiseless, if those who read take no 
profit by it. Repetition may be useful in sermons, as the 
spoken word passes and flies, and does not remain impressed 
on the heart. But written words should be read again and 
again. The Gospel was not written on paper, nor on stone; 
it was imprinted on the hearts of the Apostles, and so it 
wrought miracles. 

" You seek new exhortations, new epistles ; but reading 
much, without profit, you learn nothing. It was more profit- 
able to St. Antony that he learned the words, ' Go, sell all 
that thou dost possess, and give to the poor, and follow Me,' 
than it advantages many theologians to turn over the whole 
matter of theology. Wherefore, dear Sisters, as there are 
already enough works in the vernacular for the salvation of 
the world, we must not needlessly swell the number of tracts 
and epistles. Rather should we diligently read and meditate 
on those already composed, endeavoring to put their precepts 
and counsels into practice." 

This lesson to his disciples is one that every true 
Christian should follow : — 

" Above all things love God with all your heart. Seek His 
glory more than the salvation of your own souls. Strive ear- 
nestly to purify your hearts by frequent Confession and devout 
Communion that your affections may be raised above earthly 
things. Never regard yourselves as better than others, even 
the most sinful. Think ill of no one, well of every one. 
Often observe silence ; be as much alone as your duties per- 
mit. Shun all murmuring, detraction, idle words ; let deceit- 
ful words and slander be far from your ears, and farther from 
your tongues. Pray often ; meditate (that is, think of God) 
every hour. Show no haughtiness in word or action. Be not 
over familiar with those under you ; manifest rather a cour- 
teous gravity. Being always fearful of sin, and remembering 
the presence of God, ever ask the grace of perseverance. Re- 
new your good resolutions every day, and thus confirming 
yourselves, with God's grace, in virtue, despair not for any sin." 



200 APPENDIX I. 

He concludes by asking prayers that his own life 
may be conformable to his preaching. 

The following is a beautiful as well as practical 
thought : — 

" O women, who glory in your dress, your hair, your hands, 
I tell you you are not beautiful ; you are ugly. If you would 
behold not hideousness, but true beauty, look at some devout 
person that is guided by the Holy Ghost. Observe such a one 
in prayer, and with the Divine radiance after prayer! You 
will see the beauty of God reflected on her countenance made 
like to that of an angel." 

He disregards sufferings, and looks forward to a 
violent death : — 

" Let the Lord's will be done, for the greater our sufferings 
on earth, the greater will be our crown of glory in Heaven. 
Let us, therefore, leave all to the Lord. He is the Master 
that useth the tool to His own ends, and when He no longer 
needs it, He casts it aside, even as he permitted Jeremiah 
to be stoned to death. Even so will it be with us when we 
have served His end." 

After returning from his interview with King 
CharleSj he spoke to the people thus : — 

" This is a time in which w ords must give way to deeds, 
and vain ceremonies to true sentiments. The Lord hath 
said : ' I was enhungered, and you gave me no meat ; I 
was naked, and ye clothed me not.' He never said: 'Ye 
built not a beautiful church, or a fine convent.' He speaks 
only of works of charity. We must begin our work of reno- 
vation, then, with charity." 

Of the goodness of God, he says : — 

" Good is of its own nature diffusive, and therefore I, Who 
am the Supreme Good, diffuse Myself in creation, and I have 



APPENDIX I. 201 

given being to all creatures, so that every good which is in 
them is a participation of My goodness. For this I came 
down among men, w^as made man, and died upon the cross. 
This, tlien, will be the sign by which it will be known who is 
good. When any one diffuses his goodness among others, 
and makes them partakers of that good which he has in him- 
self, then he is truly good, and participates in My goodness. 
Christian life," he goes on, "does not consist in ceremonies, 
but in being good, and he who is good cannot refrain from 
showing his goodness. And in this consists the Christian 
religion, which is founded in love and charity." 

His reference to ceremonies must be taken in the 
sense in which God Himself condemned of old the 
ceremonies instituted by Himself when they were no 
longer animated by faith and love. 

"Faith [he s^,id] is omnipotent, and despises the life of 
earth, because it is assured of the life of Heaven. The times 
predicted are drawing near, — the hour of danger, when it 
will be seen who is truly on the Lord's side. The wicked 
thought to hinder me from preaching to-day ; but they must 
know that I have never shrunk from my duty through fear of 
men. No man on earth, be he great or small, can boast of 
having hindered me in my office. O Lord, deliver me from 
these adversaries, who call me a seducer ; deliver my soul, for 
I have no fear for my body. I call as witnesses the Lord, the 
Blessed Virgin, the angels, and the saints, that the things re- 
vealed by me come from God, and that I have received them 
by divine inspiration in the vigils which I have passed for the 
good of this people which now plot against me." 

He describes the rewards of heaven, and the trials 
of earth : — 

"But what, O Lord, shall be the reward granted in the 
other life to him who is victorious in battle ? A thing Avhich 
the eye cannot see, which the ear cannot hear, — eternal 



202 APPENDIX I. 

blessedness. And what the reward granted in this life ? 
' The servant shall not be greater than his master,' answers 
the Lord. ' Thou knowest that after preaching I was cruci- 
fied ; so martyrdom will befall thee also. O Lord, Lord, grant 
me, I pray Thee, this martyrdom, and make me ready to die 
for Thee as Thou hast died for me. Already the knife is 
sharpened for me. But the Lord tells me, ' Wait yet a little 
while, so that the things may come which have to follow ; 
and then thou wilt use that strength of mind which shall be 
given thee.' " 

He warns the righteous of evils soon to come : — 

"It is the will of God that I should be the first to endure 
them. I have already told you that I shall meet with great 
ingratitude, and the lukewarm will treat me as did the broth- 
ers of Joseph, who sold him to the Egyptian merchants. These 
say that I am no prophet ; but they are only bringing about 
the fulfilment of my predictions. I repeat to you that Italy 
will be devastated by barbarous nations ; and when they shall 
promise peace and safety, then sudden and repeated destruc- 
tion shall come upon this perverse Italy. 

"But you who are righteous make your prayers unto the 
Lord, and you shall have help. And as for the wicked, Lord, 
be not angry with them ; convert them, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do. You believe, O sinful men, that you 
are fighting against the friar, but you only make war on the 
Lord ; because I do not fight against you from hatred of you, 
but from love of God." 

In a sermon against usury and immoderate gains, 
he says : — 

"Therefore, owing to avarice, neither you nor your chil- 
dren lead a good life. You have already discovered many de- 
vices for gaining money, and many modes of exchange which 
you call just, but are most unjust; and you have likewise cor- 
rupted the magistrates in their functions. None can persuade 



APPENDIX I. 203 

you that it is sinful to lend at usury, or to make unjust bar- 
gains. On the contrary, you defend yourselves to your soul's 
damnation ; nor does any man take shame to himself for lend- 
ing at usury, but rather considers those to be fools that refrain 
from it. And thus you fullil the saying of Isaiah : ' They de- 
clare their sin as Sodom; they hide it not,' and that of Jere- 
miah, 'Thou hadst a strumpet's forehead ; thou refusest to 
be ashamed.' Thou sayest that the good and happy life con- 
sists ill gain ; and Christ says, ' Blessed are the poor in spirit, 
for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.' Thou sayest that the 
happy life consists in pleasure and voluptuousness ; and Christ 
says, ' Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,' 
Thou sayest that the happy life consists in glory ; and Christ 
says, ' Blessed are you when men shall revile you and perse- 
cute you.' The way of life hath been shown to you, yet none 
follow it, none seek it, none learn it. Therefore Christ la- 
ments over you. Having endured much to show you the way 
of life, that all might be saved, He is justly incensed against 
you, and has declared by the mouth of the prophet, ' I am 
weary with calling, my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth; 
for all day do I cry with the voice of the preachers, and no 
one hearkens unto me.' " 

The following passage shows the tenderness of the 
Frate's heart : — 

"Behold what love can effect. Take the example of a 
mother with her child. Who has taught this young woman, 
who has had no children before, to nurse her babe ? Love. 
See what fatigue she endures by day and by night to rear it, 
and how the heaviest fatigue seems light to her. What is the 
cause of this ? It is love. See what ways she has, what 
loving caresses and sweet words, for this little babe of hers ! 
What has taught her these things ? Love. . . . Take the exam- 
ple of (Christ who, moved by the deepest charity, came to us as 
a little child, in all things like unto the sons of men, and sub- 
mitting to hunger and thirst, to heat and cold and discomfort. 
What has urged Him to do this ? Love. He spoke now with 



204 APPENDIX I. 

just men, again with publicans and sinners. He led a life that 
all men and all women, small and great, rich and poor, may 
imitate all after their own way, and according to their condi- 
tion, and thus undoubtedly win their salvation. And what 
made Him lead so poor and marvellous a life ? Undoubtedly 
charity. . . . Charity bound Him to the pillar, charity led Him 
to the cross, charity raised Him from the dead, and made Him 
ascend into Heaven, and thus accomplish all the mysteries of 
our redemption. This is true and only doctrine, but in these 
days the preachers teach nothing but empty subtleties." 

He deplores the folly of superfluous reading, and 
the evil works of worldly and sinful priests : — 

"For if thou lackest the spirit of grace, what will it avail 
thee to carry about the w^hole book ? And, again, still greater 
is the foolishness of those that load themselves with letters 
and tracts and writings, so that they are like unto stalls at a 
fair. Charity does not consist in written papers ! The true 
books of Christ are the Apostles and the Saints ; the true read- 
ing of them is to imitate their lives. But in these days men 
are made books of the devil. They speak against pride and 
ambition, yet are plunged in both up to the eyes ; they preach 
chastity, and maintain concubines ; they prescribe fasting, 
and feast sumptuously themselves." 

" They call me [he says, referring to the installation of a 
new Signory] the son of perdition. Let this be sent back 
for answer: ' The man whom you thus designate has neither 
harlots nor concubines, but gives himself up to preaching the 
faith of Christ. His spiritual children, those who listen to his 
doctrine, do not pass their time in the commission of crimes; 
they go to Confession, to Communion; they live virtuously. 
This friar labors to exalt the Church of Christ, and you try to 
destroy it." 

Replying to Ludovico the Moor, who had accused 
him of teaching disobedience to the Pope, he pro- 
tests : — 



APPENDIX I. 205 

"It is not true that I have ever declared absolutely that 
the Pope ought not to be obeyed, because this would be very 
reprehensible, and contrary to those sacred canons according 
to which I have always governed myself. And so, too, it is a 
false accusation to say that I have spoken against your lord- 
ship. I am affectionate to all, and have no right to speak 
against any one in particular, but if your lordship be turned 
to God in that mind which you declare to be yours, then you 
have only to persevere; and in this matter you can have no 
better judge than your own conscience." 

In his defence of his attitude towards the Pope, 
he said : — 

" Who does not know that the Brief was issued to support 
my enemies and those of the Ilepublic who disseminated false- 
hoods and calumnies against me ? AVho does not know that 
my departure would not only be most dangerous to my own 
life, but also injurious to this people, and ruinous to its liberty; 
that good customs would be abandoned, and religion come to 
the ground ? It is this indeed that my enemies desire. I 
therefore believe that the Holy Father has been deceived by 
the false accusations of my detractors ; and I obey rather that 
which I believe to have been his intention, and will not sup- 
pose that he desires the ruin of a whole people." 

We give Savonarola's words. Our comment has al- 
ready been made : " Let justice be done though the 
heavens fall ; " and so say we of obedience to proper 
authority. 

The letter of Savonarola to Alexander VI., in which 
he gives the reasons why he thought the Pope's or- 
der not binding, we print in full : ^ — 

''^ Most Holy Father [he writes], I prostrate myself at the 
feet of your Holiness. Why is my Lord angry with his ser- 

1 See Part I., xvii. 



206 APPENDIX L 

vant, or where is the wrong that I have done ? If the sons 
of iniquity have spoken falsely of me, why does my Lord not 
inquire of his servant and hear his account before believing 
them ? For it is not easy to persuade a mind which is already 
prejudiced. 

Many dogs have compassed me, the assembly of the wicked 
have enclosed me, and they say : ' Behold ! his God cannot 
help him or save him.' For your Holiness holds the place of 
God on earth, and they accuse me of treason towards you, 
saying that I do not cease to blame you and find fault with 
you, and so in many ways they twist and cruelly pervert the 
meaning of my words. 

The same thing was done two years ago, but thousands 
who heard me can witness to my innocence, as well as my 
own words, faithfully taken down at the time and printed and 
scattered abroad. Let these be brought forward, and read and 
examined, that it may be seen if in them there is anything 
offensive to your Holiness, as these liars so often assert. 

Is it likely that I would say one thing and write another, 
and so lay myself open to the charge of flagrant contradiction ? 
What could be the object or the intention of such a line of con- 
duct ? I only wonder that your Holiness does not see their 
wicked madness. As for this great and renowned preacher, 
he must have little shame or honesty to accuse an innocent 
man of the very crime of which he is guilty. 

His words cannot be hidden away. There are numerous 
witnesses who have heard him openly attacking your Holiness, 
and lest I should be accused of falsehood, I could, if necessary, 
bring forward legal proof. But I have not forgotten that his 
insolence has already been silenced and condemned, since it 
is sinful to calunmiate any one, no matter how lowly he may 
be, much more one who is the Ivuler and Pastor of all. Who 
so senseless as to be ignorant of this ? 

For, thanks be to God, I am not so utterly abandoned, so 
utterly forgetful of my duty, as, without any reason or excuse, 
to dare to attack and insult the Vicar of Christ, to whom, above 
every one else on earth, reverence is due. As for the rest, I 



APPENDIX I. 207 

have never uttered a word contrary to the Holy Catholic Faith, 
or contrary to the teaching of the Roman Church, to whose 
judgment and authority I have ever submitted myself, and 
ever shall, whenever I am called upon. 

And this is what I have always taught, and shall teach with 
all my strength, at the same time doing my best to rouse men 
to sorrow for sin and amendment of life by awakening their 
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The work which I shall shortly bring out on the Triumph 
of the Cross is a witness to my faith, and from it can be seen 
if I have ever taught heresy or in any way opposed the Catholic 
Faith. 

Will your Holiness, therefore, turn a deaf ear to these envi- 
ous and lying tongues, and only believe what has been exam- 
ined and proved, since many of their falsehoods have already 
been openly detected. But if all human help fail me, and the 
wickedness of these impious men gain the day, I will still hope 
in God and in His help, and make their wickedness so public 
to the whole world that perhaps at the very last they will 
repent of their evil designs. 

I most humbly commend myself to your Holiness. 

From the Convent of St. Mark, 
Florence, May 22, 1497." 

The character of the sermons he delivered with a 
view to the reformation of art and artists may be 
judged from one quotation : — 

" In what does beauty consist ? In color ? ISTo. In form ? 
No. Beauty, so far as composite things are concerned, springs 
from the harmony of parts and colors; in simple things, beauty 
is their light. Behold the sun and the stars ! Their beauty is 
in the light they shed. Behold the blessed angels and heavenly 
spirits ! Their beauty is in light. The Divine Beauty, God 
Himself, is eternal Light. Thus the beauty of man or woman 
is greater, more perfect, as it approaches the primary beauty. 
What, then, is this beauty ? It is a quality resulting from the 



208 APPENDIX I. 

harmony ana proportion of parts and members of the body. A 
"woman is not beautiful because she has a beautiful nose or 
beautiful hands, but when all the parts are in correspondence 
and agreement. The source of this beauty is the soul." 

Then he proceeds to show the power of virtue and 
the eff"ects of vice. He lashed the painters of his day 
who defiled the house of God by representing the 
Blessed Virgin and the saints after the likenesses of 
women too well known in the city of Florence, '^ a 
great profanation of Divine things with which they 
filled the churches.^' 

We subjoin a few scattered thoughts from his 
spiritual letters : — 

" The lukewarm Christian does not have many tribulations 
in this life, for Satan does not persecute his own." 

" The fervent follower of Christ must encounter great op- 
position, because he is the adversary of the devil." 

" There are three arms, against which Hell's power cannot 
prevail, which the world cannot overcome, which secure the 
success of every good work, — strong faith, constant prayer, 
and humble patience." 

"All cowardice of spirit comes from want of faith, from 
igorance of the goodness of God." 

"The goodness of God is so great that we can surely ob- 
tain from Him all we desire for His honor and for our soul's 
salvation." 

Mindful of his experience of men, and as a proof 
of his devoutly Christian spirit, we close wdth a quo- 
tation from a letter addressed by him to the Brethren 
of St. Mark's : — 

" Beware of ingratitude, for it is as a scorching wind that 
dries up the fount of mercy. I beseech you that you be mind- 



APPENDIX I. 209 

ful of the benefits which you have received from God ; espe- 
cially remember that He has enlightened you, and opened the 
eyes of your soul, enabling you by the grace of Christ and 
the renewal of the Holy Spirit to come to perfection. Thus 
enriched by God, above others, it behooves you, above others, 
to manifest your gratitude and praise." 

LIST OF SAVONAROLA'S CHIEF WORKS. 

The Triumph of the CrosM. 4 Books. 

On the Simplicity of Christian Life. 6 Books. 

On Jewish Astrology. 3 Books. 

Explanation of the Our Father and Hail Mary. 

Treatise on Humility. 

Treatise on the Love of Jesus Christ. 

Treatise on Widoivhood. 

The Lament of the Spouse of Christ. 

The Soul and the Spirit. 7 Dialogues. 

Reason and Se)ise. 3 Dialogues. 

Prayer. 2 books. 

Rules of Prayer and Devout Life. 

Explanation of the Commandments. 

The Sacrifice of the Mass and its Mysteries. 

Frequent Communion. 

The Sign of the Cross, Advantages and Meaning. 

Union ivith God. A Discourse. 

Letter on taking the Habit of Religion. 

On the Perfection of the Religious State. 

Letters to the Bi^ethren of the Order of St. Dominic. 

Spiritual Reading, For Sisters of the Third Order. 

Perfection of Spiritual Life. 

The Seven Rules of a Religious. 

Meditations on the Psalm, Diligam te, Domine. 

Meditations on the Various Psalms. 

The Mystei^y of the Cross. 

Manual of Confessors. 

Sermons for Sundays and Festivals, 

Forty-Eight Sermons for Lent. 

Homilies on Holy Writ, eto. 



APPENDIX 11. 

SAVONAROLA AND CHRISTIAN ART IN FLORENCE. 

To one having the slightest knowledge of the his- 
tory of Florence during the fifteenth century, it must 
be apparent that the reform initiated by Savonarola 
would have been incomplete, insignificant, and indeed 
wholly vain, if the ardent preacher, having combated 
the pagan education and morals of the time, had spared 
the paganized art. Florence was another Athens, in 
which the cult of beauty had assumed a character 
wholly naturalistic and sensual. True Greeks, by rea- 
son of their inconstancy, their levity, their insatiable 
appetite for novelties ; captivated by theories as fan- 
ciful as dreams ; fond of luxury and of pleasure, — 
the Florentines were foremost in reviving the antique, 
and in elaborating an art which, almost Avholly ex- 
cluding the Christian ideal, sought perfection in form 
alone. Their city, it is true, was speedily filled Avith 
magnificent monuments. Even the glory of E-ome it- 
self was eclipsed by that of the " City of FloAvers." 
From Germany and beyond, men first sought Florence 
before visiting the venerable capital of the Roman 
world. 

It was the Medici, and especially Lorenzo the Mag- 
nificent, who, above all, directed and encouraged a 

210 



APPENDIX II. 211 

movement that resulted in a decadence of art, quite as 
much as in a renascence : a decadence from the point 
of view of religion ; a renascence from the materialis- 
tic and technical point of view. During the epoch 
with which we are concerned, between 1450 and 1491, 
after the passionate study of the antique marbles ; 
after the discoveries of Uccello ; after the wholly pro- 
fane audacities of Pollajuolo, of Signorelli, and even 
of Botticelli, to mention no others ; after the scanda- 
lous adventures of Fra Filippo Lippi, the license of the 
painters was restrained by no bounds ; and the facts 
noted by contemporary writers show the absolute, the 
urgent need of the reform inaugurated by the cele- 
brated prior of St. Mark's, a reform based on an 
ideal more austere and more elevated. The Madonnas 
were customarily draped after the fashion of courte- 
sans. Vasari relates that a certain father of a family, 
indignant at the liberties taken by a painter with the 
very person of the Mother of God, asked him for a 
Virgin whose religious expression should at least ex- 
clude from the mind every impure thought. The 
painter, Nunziata by name, fulfilled this commission 
by handing his patron a Madonna wearing a long 
beard.^ In Florence there was more than one artist 
of renown who boasted of never having had the Faith. 
The philosophy of Plato was the vogue, along with 
elegant verses, erotic stories, and indecent pictures. 
One would hardly believe, were it not affirmed by more 
than one writer, that mythological subjects were ex- 
posed in the very churches, and that the paganism 

1 Rio : Vart Chretien, tome 2e ; Savonarole. 



212 APPENDIX 11. 

which had corrupted society affected diseased imagi- 
nations and debased hearts at the foot of the altar 
itself. I mentioned Era Filippo Lippi. Who does 
not know that many of his Madonnas are sacrilegious 
portraits, and that, at the age of fifty, he was not 
ashamed to carry away from her convent a young 
novice, whose features he reproduced, time and again, 
in religious pictures ? A crowd of young people, at- 
tracted by this novelty, gathered curiously about the 
compositions of the debauched Carmelite ; and it is 
easy to imagine the impression produced on a society 
thus depraved by examples emanating from the sanc- 
tuary, and therefore not less alluring than dangerous. 
Some, indeed, of the disciples of Era Angelico, ar- 
tists endowed with nobler, purer souls, endeavored to 
stem the torrent. A Benozzo Gozzoli, a Lorenzo di 
Credi, a Sandro Botticelli, still did honor to Christian 
art. Perugino held the sceptre of religious painting ; 
a sceptre that would soon break in the feeble hands 
of this master of the Umbrian school. When Peru- 
gino's star declined, it was beneath clouds so dark 
that they obscured not alone his great fame, but even 
the memory of himself. Botticelli sought to combine 
mythology with Christianity, fiction with faith, nu- 
dities intended to be chaste with devotional compo- 
sitions intended to excite piety. The task was as 
difficult, as repulsive, then, as it would be to-day. 
Against the prevailing tendencies, what could the few 
heirs of the genius of the primitives effect ? However 
sure their talents, neither means nor influence could 
they command. 



APPENDIX 11. 213 

What they could not do, artists as they were, a man 
who was neither sculptor nor painter nor architect, 
but who inspired architects, painters, and sculptors, 
did effect. This man was gifted with a soul all 
aflame ; with an oratorical talent seldom, if ever, sur- 
passed ; with a profound faith and a transcendent 
genius ; and through these gifts and acquirements, 
swaying men, he was enabled to perform prodigies. 
Savonarola it is who did for art in Florence what no 
other man could do. Studying the celebrated monk 
of St. Mark's, what astonishes us is not his possession 
of certain special gifts, which have indeed been con- 
ferred by God on other men in an equal degree ; but 
rather the universality of his gifts, and the variety 
and breadth of the influence he exercised over his 
contemporaries. That he should have been a theolo- 
gian, a philosopher, an orator, and a writer, may not 
surprise us ; but when we see him engaged with the 
smallest details of pedagogy, dictating political con- 
stitutions, discussing in the ateliers with painters or 
sculptors questions wholly artistic ; when we note that 
no single subject about which the human mind can be 
exercised, escaped his clear-sighted vision ; and that, 
through the power of the word, he was a master in all 
these matters, and that he made his power felt, then 
indeed we are amazed ; and we cannot help regarding 
Savonarola as one of the most extraordinary men of 
whom there is a record in the annals of history. " Sa- 
vonarola," says an historian, " might have chosen any 
career other than that of the cloister ; he would have 
handled the chisel as well as the pen, the brush as 



214 APPENDIX II. 

well the word ; had he wished, he could have been a 
greater philosopher than Ficino, a more skilful rheto- 
rician than Politian, a poet more admirable than San- 
nazaro. Reading his sermons, it is evident that he 
was familiar with all the literary sources known in his 
day ; that he drew inspiration from the Bible, and from 
Homer, Plato, and Aristotle; that he was acquainted 
with the doctrine of the so-called Alexandrian school ; 
that he had studied astronomy, physics, mechanics, 
the natural sciences ; and that he had especially med- 
itated on the laws of Greece and of ancient Italy." ^ 

What a commotion there was in Florence — shall 
we not say, what a pious revolution — when unworthy 
magistrates, merciless usurers, lying doctors, insti- 
gators of debauchery, and indecent artists were, one 
and all, reprobated by the sovereign orator whose elo- 
quence flashed like the lightning, and pealed like the 
thunder ! Lascivious songs were replaced by chaste 
canticles, taken out of the old melodic treasures of 
the church; instead of scenes of violence there were 
processions of children ; and all the arts paid homage 
to God, the source of every beauty. 

It should, of course, be remembered that Savona- 
rola belonged to a religious order in which the fine 
arts had been ahvays cultivated. Hardly had the 
Friars Preachers been founded when two architects of 
genius were enrolled among the members, Fra Sisto 
and Fra Ristoro, both of whom passed almost their 
whole lives at Florence. ^ They completed the palace 

1 Audln., Hist, de Leon X., vol. i., chap. viii. 

2 Approximately the dates are 1225-1285. 



APPENDIX II. 215 

of the Podesta, reconstructed the Carraja bridge, and, 
as a monument witnessing to the peace established 
between Guelfs and Ghibellines, erected the beautiful 
church of Santa Maria Kovella, which Michael An- 
gelo charmingly called '' his bride/' and which E-icha 
and Fineschi declare to be, in its style, the most se- 
vere, and at the same time the most pleasing, design 
in all Italy. To these two friars, and not unreason- 
ably, the design of the church of the Minerva, in 
Rome, is also attributed ; there they worked several 
years, assisting in the construction of the Vatican 
palace. 

Among the pioneers of the order, we find a sculp- 
tor too, Fra Guglielmo da Pisa, who devoted a splen- 
did talent to ornamenting the tomb of St. Dominic, at 
Bologna. In Florence, Giovanni da Campi and Jacopo 
Talenti were not the only gifted friars who continued 
the artistic traditions of the order, or who transmitted 
them to well-trained pupils. The first Dominican 
miniaturists, and among these the illustrious cardinal, 
Blessed John Dominici, we trace to Santa Maria No- 
vella and to St. Mark's. Next comes Fra Angelico, 
who, like his brother Benedetto, was a miniaturist 
before being a painter. God has indeed blessed the 
Dominicans, giving to the order the prince of Chris- 
tian painting as well as the prince of Theology. And 
what is beauty but the splendor of truth ! 

Florence, more than any other city in the world, is 
rich in the treasures left her by the Blessed Angelico. 
His sublime compositions on the walls of the Convent 
of St. Mark showed forth to Savonarola the realiza- 



216 APPENDIX II. 

tion of tlie ideal as conceived by both these great men. 
Surely it was not without a providential design that 
the reformer dwelt in the cloisters sanctified, as well 
as decorated, by the artist ; and that the orator, by 
the power of his word, gave new life to the peaceful 
apostolate initiated by the brush of Angelico. And 
yet it may be that the apostolate of the painter, by 
its very nature, was more enduring than that of the 
preacher ; for the voice of the orator dies away ; we 
tire of reading his phrases, but we never tire of look- 
ing at pictures. As the Blessed Lorenzo de Eipafracta 
so well said to Fra Angelico and Era Benedetto when 
the two youths were being trained in the virtues most 
becoming their state of life, in the novitiate at Cor- 
tona : " You have an advantage of which orators are 
deprived. The word cannot reach those who are far 
off, nor does the most eloquent tongue deliver oracles 
from the tomb ; but the influence of your heavenly 
compositions will be immortal. During the ages they 
will persist as authentic witnesses, as efficacious 
preachers, of religion and of virtue." ^ 

Shall we make no mention of Blessed James of 
Ulm, and of his school of painting on glass ? Or 
of the renowned Fra Bartolommeo della Torta, a spir- 
itual son of Savonarola, and one of those most faith- 
ful to his memory ? Besides these, I might name 
Fra Damiano da Bergamo, than whom none has been 
more cunning in marquetry ; Fra Marcillat, distin- 
guished as an architect and as a painter in oils, and 
unrivalled as a painter on glass ; Fra Domenico Por- 
1 Vie du B. Laurent. Ann4e Dominicaine. Fev. 18. 



APPENDIX II. 217 

tigiano, the master founder — but pages would not 
suffice, were I to complete the list. In his great work 
on the Dominican artists, Father Marchese notes more 
than forty-five painters of renown, fifty-five architects, 
twenty-two painters on glass, twenty-eight miniatur- 
ists, six sculptors, five artists in marquetry, not to 
speak of all those, who, in Italy, France, Holland, and 
elsewhere, have studied and solved the most intricate 
problems in mechanics. Though I have confined 
myself to the arts of design, I may justly record the 
r Ame of Jerome of Moravia, who, more learnedly than 
,ny one else, has written of the ecclesiastical music 
of the Middle Ages.^ Were it my purpose to do jus- 
tice, not alone to our masters of long ago, but also to 
those nearer to us in time, and whose lives form a 
part of our own, I could not forget Father Besson, 
and the paintings in Santa Sabina, or Father Danzas, 
and the splendid windows of the church of the Domin- 
icans at Lyons. 

The aesthetic theories of Savonarola may have 
appeared extravagant to some, and it is indisputable 
that, considered in themselves, and without a due 
regard to the circumstances and to the moral depra- 
vation of Florentine society, they may not easily be 
defended against a charge of exaggeration. He for- 
bade absolutely the study of the nude, or of nature 
by means of the living model. The antique statues 

1 See, in the Revue Thomiste for August, 1893, a remarkable 
article, in which Father J. Berthier, O.P., prints an eloquent 
list of the Dominicans who have been leaders and initiators in 
the various branches of human learning. 



218 APPENDIX 11. 

found no favor in his sight. More than one master- 
piece of sculpture, it is said, was forever lost in the 
so-called " destruction of anathemas," ^ when cards, 
dice, and other instruments of gambling were burned, 
along with harps, guitars, violins ; with musical scores 
of indelicate songs, volumes of improper verse, per- 
fumes, powders, essences, immodest portraits, lascivi- 
ous paintings, and costly carvings, willingly sacrificed 
by owners anxious for the salvation of their souls. 
What was possible at a time when Faith still held 
sway would certainly be impracticable to-day ; but 
why judge mercilessly acts that should be measured 
according to time and place. The public exposure of 
nudities has always been, and ever will be, dangerous. 
For a great number, and especially for the young, the 
study of the nude has proved a snare, in which too 
many have been caught at the expense of virtue. 
Savonarola knew whereof he spoke, we may well be- 
lieve, when from the pulpit he declared that if the 
artists were conscious, as he was, of the ruin done to 
simple souls by indecent pictures, they would detest 
their own works. Recalling the fact that among the 
people certain statues were designated by the familiar 
names of the more notorious Florentine beauties, one 
will readily excuse the severity of the friar in his ef- 
fort to destroy works which, in the minds of the peo- 
ple, were associated with real objects, only too well 
known. In an enterprise so arduous, it was, more- 
over, difficult to trace the exact line at which excess 
began. Art, forced backward, quickly retakes its 
1 A name which he gave to profane objects. 



APPENDIX II. 219 

rightful place. Thus, when I see Lorenzo di Credi 
and Bartolommeo della Porta cast into the flames their 
studies of the nude, I call their action grand, noble, 
an act of courage, exemplary, efficacious, educational. 
To all the admirers of mere beauty of form, these 
painters taught the lesson that in art all things are 
not permissible, and that, to save art from degenera- 
tion and from decadence, certain principles of morality 
must be defended and practised. 

The artists of renown who may justly be called 
disciples of Savonarola are : Sandro Botticelli, Lorenzo 
di Credi, Perugiuo, Fra Bartolommeo, and Michael 
Angelo, who, though a mere youth when Savonarola 
was active in preaching, ever remained passionately 
attached to the ideas, and was ever a student of the 
writings, of the reformer. Notwithstanding the in- 
evitable differences due to temperament and educa- 
tion, each of these great men was, in his own way, 
spiritually minded and religious. Botticelli we recog- 
nize at a glance by his mannered elegance. His 
Madonnas are beautiful and full of expression. The 
Virgin composing the '^ Magnificat " has always been 
considered a masterpiece, in which a most artful dis- 
position of the figures is combined with the expres- 
sion of a sentiment both intense and deep. Lorenzo 
di Credi Avas pious and chaste ; all he needed was con- 
tact with Savonarola, in order that the ideal he had 
never ceased contemplating should be exalted still 
higher. Perugino, notwithstanding the- decline nota- 
ble in the work of his later days, did honor to reli- 
gion with his brush. To have been the father of a 



220 APPENDIX II. 

whole generation of artists was glory enough; but 
even this glory was enhanced by the fame of his 
pupil Kaphael, through whom Perugino may be said 
to have touched the topmost point that the art of 
painting should attain. Among these men, it was 
Fra Bartolommeo whose imagination was the more 
naturalistic. Familiarity with the works of Fra An- 
gelico caused no change in his manner. He draws 
most like to Eaphael, and his coloring is that of a 
Venetian, but occasionally his outlines are hard, and 
his coloration pleases the 63^6 more than it affects the 
soul ; still he is a great artist, and one of the bright- 
est luminaries of Dominican art. 

What can one say of Michael Angelo ? His bold- 
ness Savonarola would not, perhaps, have always ap- 
proved. But how much more chaste he is in treating 
the nude than were certain Florentines of the fifteenth 
century who were pleased to call their compositions 
religious. That he exaggerates the cult of the hu- 
man form, that he counts the muscles too minutely, 
indeed that he invents muscles in order to enjoy our 
admiration of the display, — I do not deny ; but how 
puissant he was, how profound, how sublime ! And 
because of these very qualities, is he not related to 
Savonarola, the reformer ? 

For the most part, the disciples of the friar were 
true to the memory of their master. In the Convent 
of St. Mark, the sacred fire of great art burned ever 
brightly ; and from St. Mark's, as a centre, radiated 
the light of the teachings of which Savonarola was 
the apostle. Spread far and wide, the writings of the 



APPEITDIX n, 221 

illustrious preacher perpetuated his creative word, 
which, notwithstanding the tragical events of the 
year 1498, had not lost its potency. There is not a 
single historian of the fine arts who fails to mention 
Savonarola, or to note the influence exercised by him 
on the artists of his time. This influence writers 
may estimate favorably or unfavorably, but none can 
deny that it was profound and permanent. 

Such is the destiny of the orator. The enthusi- 
asm he excites, the tears he causes to flow, the im- 
mediate effect produced on the crowd by his word, 
we know from experience. But to confine within 
these narrow limits the good that the orator may do 
to the souls of men ; to measure precisely the dura- 
tion of the effect of his word ; to follow the currents 
that, flowing from his lips, are transmitted down 
through the ages, — this is impossible. All we need 
say is that history echoes and re-echoes the great ora- 
tor's name, and that, to generation after generation, 
the mere sound of that name recalls the aim and end 
to which his life was devoted. 

F. BERNARDIN MERLIN, O.P. 
Rosary Hill, April, 1898. 



APPENDIX III. 

A BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

To the reader who may desire to study more closely 
the history of Florence as it is identified with the ca- 
reer of Savonarola, and the conditions of the times in 
which he was born, as well as of the age in which he 
lived, we desire to present a useful bibliography. 

The " Lives " of Savonarola, by Burlamacchi, and 
by Pico della Mirandola, are not readily found in 
public or private libraries. The edition of Della 
Mirandola's " Life " which we have used, is the one 
printed at Paris in 1674. Besides the " Life " this 
edition contains the same author's, '' Apology for 
Savonarola, as against his unjust (?) excommunica- 
tion.'^ This " Apology " was published as a separate 
volume as early as 1521, at Wittemberg; and this 
earlier edition we have controlled, as well as the 
later. The " Life '' by Burlamacchi may be found in 
the ^^ Miscellanea^^ of Stephen Baluzius (edited by 
Mansi), published at Lucca, in 1761. Besides the 
^' Life," this volume also contains valuable letters of 
Savonarola, of Alexander VL, and of contemporary 
princes ; as well as Father Paul Bernardine's defence 
of Savonarola under excommunication. 

The ^' Cedrus Libani,^^ by Father Benedict, is 

222 



APPENDIX III. 223 

printed in the Archivio Storico Itallano. His '' Vul- 
nera Dillgentis,''^ so-called from the text he used, 
" Better are the wounds of a friend than the kisses 
of an enemy," is rare. In the '' Vulnera DUiyentis,''^ 
Benedict, after his return from exile (a punishment 
inflicted on him for his armed defence of Savonarola 
on the night when St. Mark's was stormed), began 
by voice and pen to prove the forgeries of the iniqui- 
tous Ceccone, the notary who corrupted Savonarola's 
statements. Benedict resorted to sarcasm as well as 
to criticism, mercilessly lampooning the friar's ene- 
mies. He excited such opposition that he was finally 
imprisoned and tortured. While confined to a cell, 
his undaunted spirit devoted the lingering hours to 
the writing of the " Vulnera Diligentis^^ an animated 
and loyal defence of his master. 

Noting works within the reach of all students, we 
mention first the writings of the Frate's contempora- 
ries : — 

1. The Memoirs of Philip de Commines. 

De Commines was the French ambassador to Flor- 
ence in the time of Savonarola, and was personally ac- 
quainted with the stirring events of that period. 

2. History of the City of Florence, by Nardi, an eye- 
witness of the execution of Savonarola. 

3. History of Florence, by Machiavelli, 

a work of less value than the preceding, apart from the 
character of the author and his dangerous principles. 

4. History of Italy, by GuiCClARDiNi, 

of whom Montaigne says in his " Essay of Books," that 
" of so severall and divers armes, successes and effects 



224 APPENDIX III. 

he judgeth of ; of so many and variable motives, alter- 
ations and counsels that he relateth, he never refer- 
reth any one unto vertue, religion, or conscience, as 
if they were all extinguished and banished the world ; 
and of all actions how glorious soever in appearance 
they be of themselves, he doth ever impute the cause 
of them to some vicious and blame-worthie occasion, 
or to some commodities and profit." At greater 
length Montaigne exhibits the Florentine's methods 
of writing history, but this warning word is sufficient. 
Following these, we place, in due order : — 

5. The third volume of the Dominican Father Touron's 
Histoires des Homines Illustres de VOrdre de S. Dominique. 

C. The continuation of the Annales Ecclesiastici of Cardi- 
nal Baronius, by F. Abraham Bzovius, O.P. 

7. Scriptores Ordinis Prcedicatorum^ by Father Que- 
TiF, O.P., continued by Father Echard, O.P. 

8. The Dominican Father Makchese's writings. 

a. San Marco, Illustrato e Inciso* 

b. Appendices 23 and 25 in the Archimo Storico Ita- 

liano (very valuable for the insight they give 
into Savonarola's private life). 

c. Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and 

Architects of the Order of St. Dominic, 

whose title is given in English, the Rev. C. P. Mee- 
han having translated this work, and published it at 
Dublin, in 1852. Father Marchese worked diligently 
and well in bringing to light many previously un- 
known letters and documents, and has written con- 
scientiously and learnedly in defence of Savonarola. 

9. Jerome Savonarole, sa vie, ses predications, ses ccrits, 
par F. T. Perrens, published in France in 1853, but not as 
yet translated into English. 



APPENDIX III. 225 

10. Histoire de Florence depuis la domination des Medicls 
jusqiCa la chute de la Republique. 3 vols. Paris, 1888-1890, 
par F. T. Perkens. 

M. Perrens, as we have stated in the body of this 
book, received generous assistance from the Domini- 
can Father Marchese. The studies of M. Perrens are 
good. His conclusions, however, do not always agree 
with our own. 

11. The Life and Martyrdom of Girolamo Savonarola, Il- 
lustrative of the History of Church and State Connection, by 
R. R. Madden. 

This work, published at London in 1853, is of con- 
siderable value. It is full, exhaustive, perhaps need- 
lessly detailed. The author's purpose was to offer 
proof of the evils arising from a connection between 
Church and state. His historical references and re- 
flections are copious. He is an ardent admirer of 
Savonarola, but professes to view the field impartially. 
To the teachings and prophecies of the friar he de- 
votes several chapters, giving generous extracts from 
his writings, notably a translation of the treatises 
on the rule of Florence, on prayer, and on the Our 
Father ; and also a spirited version in English of 
several of Savonarola's hymns, together with the ori- 
ginal text in Latin or Italian ; and, in an appendix, a 
list of all his works. A second appendix containing 
an enumeration of biographies and histories consulted 
by Mr. Madden will be found helpful. To this author 
we are indebted for the metrical translation of the 
hymn in honor of our Lady published in the second 
part of our sketch. Despite some inaccuracies indi- 



226 APPEyjDix III, 

eating hasty writing, but not of sufficient importance 
to detract from the substantial value of his work, and 
despite the fact that he wrote as an opponent of the 
temporal power of the Pope, and with a set purpose 
of supporting a theory (a disposition which urges a 
man to subordinate even his hero to his purpose), these 
volumes by Mr. Madden will be found of interest. 

12. Gli Eretici d' Italia, by Cesare Cantu. 

13. Storia d' Italia, by Cesare Cantu. 

14. Storia Universale, by Cesare Cantu. 

These learned works, by one of the greatest among 
modern historians, need no commendation here. 

15. MilmarCs Essays on Savonarola, Erasmus, etc. 

16. Vieio of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, 
by Henry Hallam ; and his 

17. Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fif- 
teenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries. 

Two works of great research and broad scholarship, 
notwithstanding the author's prejudices, and his omis- 
sion, in the latter, of all mention of Savonarola. 

18. Michelefs Renaissance, a part of his "History of 
France." 

Michelefs bitter prejudices are so well known that 
we are not inclined to esteem highly his estimate of 
any person, be it favorable or unfavorable. 

19. Ueber die Kunst der Dominicaner in 14 und 15 Jahr- 
hundert, by Hettner, 

and his 

20. Renaissance und die Dominicanerkunst. 

21. Renaisfiance in Italy, by John Addington Symonds, 
a work in live parts that practically form a complete scheme 
of treatment. 



APPENDIX III. 227 

In " The Age of the Despots," considerable space is 
given to Savonarola. As Mr. Symonds is a gentleman 
who uses the word " Eomish," and rolls under his 
tongue, as a choice morsel, " Jesuitical hypocrisy," 
we believe that further criticism is unnecessary. 

22. The Italian Republics, by Sismondi, and his 

23. Historij of the Revival of Liberty in Italy ; of its Prog- 
ress, its Decline, and its Fall. 

Sismondi was a Swiss Protestant, an inheritor of 
Genevan traditions, and therefore a man who will 
bear watching when he touches matters concerning 
the Papacy. We quote Sismondi and Symonds chiefly 
because of their testimony to the Catholicity of Savo- 
narola. 

24. The Life of Lorenzo (Ze' Medici, called the Magnificent, 
by William Roscoe, and his 

25. Life of Leo the Tenth. 

Mr. Roscoe's works, which were once highly es- 
teemed because of the rarity of English books dealing 
with the Italian Renaissance, have little value so far 
as the personal history of Savonarola is concerned. 
According to the distinguished Englishman, the great 
Italian was a dangerous fanatic who met a deserved 
fate. 

26. Du Vandalisme et du Catholicisme dans VArt, par M. 
Rio, a part of which, La Poesie Chretienne dans fArt, con- 
tains a beautiful tribute to Savonarola. 

27. Life of Michael Angelo Buonarotti, by J. S. Harford. 

Of Mr. Harford's interesting work, we have already 
spoken in a note. 

28. Storia delta Letter atur a Italiana, by Tiraboschi, who 
was a Medicean. 



228 APPENDIX III. 

29. Storia della Letter atura Italiana, by Cantu. 

30. Christian Schools and Scholars, by Rev. Mother Ra- 
phael Dkane, O. p. 

This work holds a high place in its line ; indeed, 
it may be considered a classic. 

31. Lives of the Most Celebrated Painters, Sculptors, and 
Architects, by Yasaki. 

As a Medicean, this author's judgment is partisan. 

32. The Life of St. Philip Neri, by Cardinal Capece- 

LATRO. 

33. The Life of St. Catherine de Ricci, by Pere Bayonxe, 
O. P., done into English by the Dominican Sisters, Albany, 
N.Y. 

34. The Life of St. Antoninus, Archbishop) of Florence, by 
F. TOURON, O. P. 

35. The Life of Blessed Giovanni ofFiesole, better known as 
Fra Angelico, by the same. 

36. History of the Popes, by Dr. Ludwig Pastor. 

This is the latest and best work that has appeared 
on the Papacy. It supersedes all others, and renders 
needless any special reference to the work of Chris- 
tophe, '' History of the Papacy in the Fifteenth Cen- 
tury/' or to von Ranke's " History of the Popes." 

37. Von Ranke's Savonarola und die Florentinische Be- 
publik (jegen Ende des fiinfzehnten Jahrhunderts, an essay 
published in 1887, as a part of a volume entitled Historisch- 
Biographische Studien. 

Of this suggestive study we have already spoken. 
Following it is a " Criticism of the accounts of Sa- 
vonarola by Pico (della Mirandola) and by P)urlaniac- 
chi." Von llanke argues that the work attributed 
to Burlamacchi, and written in Italian, is not his ; 
though it may be an edition of a manuscri])t of his, 



APPENDIX III. 229 

to which another writer made additions, using freely 
the Latin life written by Pico. Von Ranke's cri- 
tique is supported by quotations from the text of 
Pico as well as from that attributed to Burlamacchi. 
The facts are, no doubt, as he states them, but von 
Kanke's conclusions do not affect the credibility of 
either one of the time-honored authorities. Though 
Pico and Burlamacchi frequently agree verbally, yet 
the two writers are none the less distinct and original 
sources. To explain their agreement may not be easy, 
but it is their differences that establish their inde- 
pendence and their reliability. 

38. Savonarole et la Statue de Luther a Worms, par le 
Peke Rouaki) de Card, O. P. 

39. The Life and Times of Jerome Savonarola, from the 
Italian of Pasquale Villaki, the latest edition having been 
published at New York in 1890. 

Professor Villari is not a Catholic. He writes as 
an advocate for his hero, and sees little good or 
honesty in Alexander VI., whom he does not treat 
with fairness. The political side of the great prior's 
character he contemplates with special satisfaction. 
Nevertheless, he views with more sympathy than does 
Pastor the mystical and the prophetical spirit in Savo- 
narola, and renders a more competent judgment than 
that of the distinguished German in discussing the 
merits of Father Bayonne's " Study." For historical 
facts Villari may be safely followed, despite the color- 
ing of his opinions. In the preface to his work he 
refers freely to what might be called the Savonarola 
literature, especially of the nineteenth century. 



230 APPENDIX. 

40. Etude sur Jerome Savonarole d'apres des nouveauz Do- 
cuments, par le Rp. Bayonne, O. P. 

Father Bayonne died before he could realize his 
entire plan. He earnestly labored to prove the pro- 
phetic power and saintliness of Savonarola ; but his 
work was withdrawn from circulation for reasons of 
prudence, and not because of any official censure. 
We refer to Bayonne's work because it is so fre- 
quently mentioned in biographies and histories of Sa- 
vonarola ; w^e also desire to characterize it as required 
by the law of the Dominican Order. 

41. II vera Savonarola e il Savonarola di L. Pastor^ Paolo 
LuoTTO, published in Florence, 1897, by Le Monnier. 

An English translation of this book is now under 
way by Eev. S. H. Glendon, 0. P. 

Like Pere Bayonne, Professor Luotto died before 
he could see the crown of his labors in behalf of 
Savonarola. His important work in the volume 
named is the latest addition to Savonarola literature, 
if we except the centennial review mentioned in this 
Appendix. Professor Luotto defends Savonarola 
against the charges brought by Pastor, who, in a 
subsequent pamphlet, replies to the Italian writer, 
though he advances no new argument, merely re- 
affirming the statements made in his " History of 
the Popes." The unfriendly article that appeared in 
the Civllta Cattolica (March 5, 1898), reviewing both 
of these publications, has occasioned much indigna- 
tion among the admirers of Savonarola, who cannot 
understand the motive inspiring the severe treatment 
accorded to the Dominican. 



APPENDIX III. 231 

Pastor's pamphlet was published in Freiburg, by 
Herder, and is entitled " Zur Beurtheilung Savona- 
rolas Kritische Streifziige." 

42. Savonarola and the Reformation, by Rev. J. Procter, 
O. P. 

This is not the last word of Rev. Father Procter 
in defense of the much maligned Frate. 

43. Savonarola: Ilis Life and Times, by William Clark. 
Though the volume is pleasantly written, the author 

is inimical to the Papacy. 

44. Studies in Churdh History, by Rev. Reuben Parsons. 
The third volume deals with Huss, the Councils of 

Basel and Constance, the conspiracy of the Pazzi, 
Alexander VI., Savonarola, etc. 

45. The Makers of Florence, by Mrs. Oliphant. 

This work treats of Florence in a very interesting 
manner. To Savonarola a good portion of the volume 
is dedicated, while the chapter on the Piagnoni paint- 
ers may be considered a supplement to his life. Mrs. 
Oliphant is a champion whose spirit may be judged 
from one sentence : " And Florence, to which such 
springs of new life and freedom had come, inspired 
by that Dominican whom she slaughtered in her pub- 
lic square, fell into a decay of all her noble qualities, 
which was not beautiful." 

46. Romola, a romance by George Eliot. 

The noted Englishwoman gives a vivid picture of 
Florence in the last decade of the fifteenth century, 
and a fairly accurate portrait of the great preacher. 

47. Savonarola, a Tragedy, by the present Poet Laureate 
of England, Alfred Austin. 



232 APPENDIX III. 

48. History of Philosophy, by Cardinal Gonzalez, O. P. 

Though written in Spanish, and as yet only trans- 
lated into French, we give the English title of this very 
valuable work of Cardinal Gonzalez as a translation of 
it, will, Ave hope, soon be published. 

49. Apology for Christianity, by Rev. Albert M. Weiss, 
O. P. 

This very able work has already been rendered into 
French from the original German. An English edi- 
tion is in course of preparation. Father Weiss is 
justly regarded as among the foremost sociologists of 
the world. He treats, in an admirable manner, the 
Renaissance. 

In this list we have not set down the works of 
Napier, Dinwiddle, and others named in our earlier 
pages. We have enumerated only volumes easily ob- 
tained. Villari and Madden mention others, available 
chiefly to the scholar or to the searcher in great libraries. 

A review entitled : Quarto Ce7itenario della 3Iorte 
di Fra Glrolamo Savonarola (Fourth Centenary of the 
Death of Friar Jerome Savonarola) is in course of 
publication at Florence. 

Besides letters addressed to the committee in charge 
of the celebration, by the present Master-General of 
the Dominican Order, the Most Reverend Father 
Friihwirth; by Cardinal Bausa, 0. P., Archbishop of 
Florence ; aiid by other cardinals, bishops, and emi- 
nent persons, ecclesiastic and lay, an interesting ac- 
count will also be found, in this review, of the entire 
celebration commemorating the fourth centenary of 
Savonarola's death. 



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